Non rail related tunnels below London.

[Bald Rick]

The jubilee line extension at Westminster provided a disguise, & a budget, for a pedestrian tunnel from the 10 Downing Street complex to the House of Commons.
Occasionally the darkened window cavalcade sweeping out of Downing Street for the Commons has no PM aboard. He/She has walked underground at times of a heightened security alert.

mods note. Split from this thread

Well this is nonsense!

You might be confusing it with the tunnel from the Houses of Parliament to Portcullis House, the latter of which is sat atop the Westminster station box dug for the jubilee line. I imagine that the tunnel cost rather less than 0.5% of the whole JLE.

 

[alf]

Well this is nonsense!

You might be confusing it with the tunnel from the Houses of Parliament to Portcullis House, the latter of which is sat atop the Westminster station box dug for the jubilee line. I imagine that the tunnel cost rather less than 0.5% of the whole JLE.

My assertion that there is a tunnel from Downing Street to the Commons built under the guise of Jubilee extension work is not nonsense.
Years ago I was shown a public domain planning map by a friend in Westminster planning dept which showed the tunnel built as part of the Jubilee line extension works.

I googled after Bald R’s blunt rebuttal & can’t immediately find the map... but I found this dated July 2012 on “Ian visits.“

“Five Days that Changed Britain” which was on BBC Two yesterday provided a useful confirmation of the presence of the tunnels under Whitehall. Peter Mandelson described how he and Gordon Brown used the tunnels to travel from Downing Street to meetings with Nick Clegg at the House of Commons after the general election”

 

[matt_world2004]

But they could have provided moving walkways in the very long wide high Liz line pedestrian tunnels.

I wonder if a second reason for the Elizabeth line in central London is to provide air raid tunnels ..like in the generously sized Kiev metro.

There are sometimes second purposes for building tube lines.
The jubilee line extension at Westminster provided a disguise, & a budget, for a pedestrian tunnel from the 10 Downing Street complex to the House of Commons.
Occasionally the darkened window cavalcade sweeping out of Downing Street for the Commons has no PM aboard. He/She has walked underground at times of a heightened security alert.

As well as sampling the new escalators yesterday I also used the Liz to Central line lifts at Bond Street.
The button stops & printed guides on an least one of the lifts between the Liz & the Central are confusingly marked “Crossrail”
If I spotted this why haven’t TfL?

The tunnels between 10 downing street and the various civil service buildings were built in the 1950s and was disguised by something else. The design and routing for the jubilee line had to be built in consultation with the government would advise them where to tunnel but not why they couldn't tunnel in certain places.

There is no civil defence purpose for crossrail

 

[stuu]

The tunnels between 10 downing street and the various civil service buildings were built in the 1950s and was disguised by something else. The design and routing for the jubilee line had to be built in consultation with the government would advise them where to tunnel but not why they couldn't tunnel in certain places.

There is no civil defence purpose for crossrail

There are tunnels the length of Whitehall built originally for hardened telephone lines and exchange equipment pre WW2 and expanded in the 1940s and 1950s

 

[Bald Rick]

There’s ‘secret’ tunnels all around Westminster, and have been for 80 years, including the one running the length of Whitehall with a connection to Downing Street. It is well documented in the book “London’s Secret Tubes” by Emmerson and Beard, a copy of which I have in front of me now.

When JLE was built they had to work around these tunnels.

Also the JLE and Westminster station is some distance from Downing St, and there would be no reason for JLE to build a tunnel into Downing St, especially as one already existed!

 

[DerekC]

I have often wondered why the Westminster Jubilee Line station tunnels are one above the other rather than beside each other. There are no other deep tube tunnels in the area.

 

[GS250]

There used to be all sorts of rumours regarding tunnels from Westminster/Downing Street to Northolt Air base or Bentley Priory.

How true they are is anyone's guess.

 

[Bald Rick]

I have often wondered why the Westminster Jubilee Line station tunnels are one above the other rather than beside each other. There are no other deep tube tunnels in the area.

That’s because of the constrained station box at Westminster.

But there are other deep tube tunnels in the area, just not railway tubes!

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

There used to be all sorts of rumours regarding tunnels from Westminster/Downing Street to Northolt Air base or Bentley Priory.

How true they are is anyone's guess.

Given that in both cases the distance is approximately 15 miles, I should have thought the answer would be obvious!

 

[birchesgreen]

There are many government tunnels, Q-Whitehall for example is said to have links to various places.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Would all the various culverted streams/rivers that flow into the Thames, such as the River Fleet, count for the purposes of this thread?

 

[DarloRich]

Surely https://www.subbrit.org.uk/ will help here.

We're fascinated by man-made and man-used underground places — from mines to railway tunnels, military defences to nuclear bunkers and everything in between. Join us and explore...

Some of the claims in the quoted section in the first post are "interesting"!

EDIT - i also suggest viewing the famous Duncan Campbell New Statesman article ( https://www.duncancampbell.org/menu/journalism/newstatesman/newstatesman-1980/a christmas party for the moles.pdf ) from 1980. It is entitled

A Christmas Party for the Moles

And this website: https://whoownsengland.org/2017/12/15/how-land-registry-data-reveals-londons-secret-tunnels/ has some plans and details based on Land Registry data

 

[GS250]

Would all the various culverted streams/rivers that flow into the Thames, such as the River Fleet, count for the purposes of this thread?

Started a thread about that a few weeks ago.

I guess since the majority are very walkable then yes.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Started a thread about that a few weeks ago.

Indeed you did, although not all are culverted or are otherwise in tunnels, presumably!

London's lost waterways...

Anyone else have some kind of interest in these? For those not familiar, there used to be a number of small rivers running 10 or so miles from the suburbs into the Thames. These became heavily polluted and eventually were covered up and diverted into the Victorian interceptor sewer system...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[stuu]

There’s ‘secret’ tunnels all around Westminster, and have been for 80 years, including the one running the length of Whitehall with a connection to Downing Street. It is well documented in the book “London’s Secret Tubes” by Emmerson and Beard, a copy of which I have in front of me now.

My dad had a copy of Peter Laurie's "Beneath the city streets", lots of which was conjecture and some has been debunked but it was fascinating to read as a teenager at the end of the cold war

 

[matt_world2004]

There used to be all sorts of rumours regarding tunnels from Westminster/Downing Street to Northolt Air base or Bentley Priory.

How true they are is anyone's guess.

They wouldnt have needed to have built a secret tunnel between Westminster/Downing Street to RAF northolt. For most of the cold war you surely you could have run a piccadilly line tube stock from the westminster district line platforms to Ickenham station ( I am not sure if platform heights would have prevented this ) in the event of a national emergency requiring the evacuation of MPs/Royal family to RAF northolt. Although how feasible that would have been as an evacuation plan in reality remains to be seen

(District line stock would not have ran to ickenham due to the low bridges )

 

[Ediswan]

They wouldnt have needed to have built a secret tunnel between Westminster/Downing Street to RAF northolt. For most of the cold war you surely you could have run a piccadilly line tube stock from the westminster district line platforms to Ickenham station ( I am not sure if platform heights would have prevented this ) in the event of a national emergency requiring the evacuation of MPs/Royal family to RAF northolt. Although how feasible that would have been as an evacuation plan in reality remains to be seen

(District line stock would not have ran to ickenham due to the low bridges )

Ickenham is not, and as far as I can tell never has been, convenient for the final leg by road to the airfield. Ruislip or Hilingdon look simpler.

South Ruislip (Central line) would be better still, but I don't know if a direct train would be possible.

 

[Basil Jet]

(District line stock would not have ran to ickenham due to the low bridges )

What low bridges? District Stock used to run to Uxbridge.

 

[matt_world2004]

What low bridges? District Stock used to run to Uxbridge.

All I know is when district dave accidentally took a district line train there. He couldn't run all the way because of low bridges. Iirc it's at park Royal.