>>6555620
Bearing in mind the “you posted so much text” girl, I’ll keep this in bullet point format for easier reading.
• The London Silver Vaults are below the ground of Chancery Lane, and the Crown Jewels were until recently kept in a bunker beneath the Tower of London.
• During the Great Fire of 1666, the booksellers of St. Paul’s Churchyard put all their stock into the crypt of the parish church of St. Faith’s, but the cathedral roof collapsed and broke through. When the booksellers opened the vault, the rush of air made the paper burst into flames, and the books burned for a week.
• In 1861, Charles Dickens noted in an essay, “… the deserted money cellars of the bankers, and their plate cellars, and their jewel cellars, what subterranean regions of the Wonder Lamp are these!”
• Many London banks are building larger and deeper vaults to accommodate additional gold. The Bank of England’s vault is the largest, the second biggest hoard of gold bullion on the planet. A network of tunnels, radiating out from the bank, run beneath the streets.
• You would not know, on walking along High Holborn or Whitehall, that there is a secret world beneath your feet. There are no signs or sounds of the spaces below, and the gateways are designed to blend into the surroundings, unnoticeable. “It is only when you understand the nature of underground London that you come to realize that everything is in fact something else. So the contagion of secrecy spreads.”
• In the center of the city, where the government agencies are located, an underground world has been constructed—tunnels, exchanges, bunkers, cubicles, and larger command spaces. Many were built before and during WWII, others during the Cold War. Despite the passage of those immediate dangers, some spaces are still in use for purposes unknown.
• In 1939, a tunnel was built from the south side of Trafalgar Square to the Cenotaph, the first stage of what became a large underground network. The original tunnel was soon extended to what was said to be a “telephone exchange” at the top of Whitehall. It’s still there, and remains completely unnoticed.
• Those tunnels were later deepened and widened to take in Parliament Square and several other areas, with an emergency exit in the basement of the old Westminster Hospital. It is an extensive network of underground life connected with the government.
• There is a door at the bottom of the steps that lead down from Carlton House Terrace into the Mall; a big extractor fan is fastened to an adjacent wall. The door itself is barely visible.
• Another portal is on the opposite side of the road, within the large ivy-covered bunker on the edge of Hose Guards Parade known as the Citadel. There were once four “citadels”, portals to subterranean London.
• You may have visited the Churchill War Rooms buried under the Treasury building. Other rooms and tunnels connected to it (this anon noticed countless locked doors in the War Rooms), are closed for the simple reason that they’re connected to the same complex beneath Whitehall.
• In 1942 a vast and elaborate structure was built 100 feet beneath High Holborn, with entrances at 39 Furnival St and 31 High Holborn, designed to contain a deep bunker and telephone exchange. Those two entrances are both easy to miss, and deliberately designed to be as unmemorable and unobtrusive as possible. In Furnival St, there are two black double doors that might lead to a warehouse; above them is a large iron pulley, for moving freight, and an air vent. Ventilation shafts are also visible in the adjacent Took’s Court.
• The entrance at High Holborn was under some construction when the book was written, but the author apparently was able to peer through a glass doorway and saw what looked to be a derelict elevator. This elevator goes 8 floors down into the underworld, to two half-mile long tunnels, as well as others built in the early 1950’s. There’s room for 80 people, with dining rooms and communal living areas as well as private cubicles. Once, a 6-month store of food was kept there.