Fancy a week (well, almost) of events about the mysteries that lurk unseen under the streets of London? Sadly, mainly limited to talking about what is down there rather than actually visiting the places, the talks will still be of interest to many Londoners who share my fascination for the hidden underworld.

Although most of the events invite you to tour the subterranean world through the vicarious medium of lectures – there are two tours that will include going below ground.

Organised by Illumini, the talks are free and you can just turn up on the day – although to guarantee a seat, you can send them an email booking tickets if you want. However, for a couple of the tours, booking is required.

To book tickets for any of the tours,walks or talks – send an email to illumini@hotmail.co.uk with your details and which talks/tours you are interested in.

Walks/Tours:

• There are two torchlight tours of Shoreditch Church Crypt on Friday 10th Sept (10:45am) and Tuesday 14th Sept (2pm) – free, booking essential (bring your own torch).
• A chance to climb through a very narrow entrance and down scaffolding to get inside the main shaft at Brunel’s tunnel in Rotherhithe. Tours leave 5pm & 6pm on Sat 11th and hourly noon to 4pm on Sun 12th Sept. – £5, no need to book, just pay on the day (I’ve been before, a couple of times)
• A walking tour, above ground, of what lies under Westminster on Wed 15th Sept at 2pm – £5, booking required.

Then there are the talks:

All take place at The Basement Shoreditch Town Hall, 380 Old Street, London, EC1V 9LT

Friday 10th Sept

• 11am The Occult World of Subterranean London
  • The talk will cover where to meet druids, witches and wizards; how to find good tarot readers; the hidden, occult places of London, and more.
• 2pm Crypts, Creatures and Caverns: the Folklore of Subterranean London
  • Dark,tales of London’s lost grottos and caverns, strange sewer creatures, urban legends and panics and ghostly goings-on in crypts and catacombs
• 5pm Subterranean City
  • Antony Clayton, author of Subterranean City will talk about various aspects of the inverted city beneath our streets

Saturday 11th Sept

• 11am Living London uncovers the mysteries that lie beneath us
  • Find out about secret tunnels and rooms that exist in our city.
• 2pm Eighth Wonder of the world
  • Robert Hulse, Director of The Brunel Museum, tells the story of the men who dug the Brunel Tunnel
• 4:30pm What lurks beneath – spirits and spectres of subterranean London
  • Rosie Murdie, ghost investigator and member of The Ghost Club will tell some of the ghostly tales associated with subterranean London.

Sunday 12th Sept

• 11am Post Office underground miniature Train
  • A talk on the post office miniature underground railway, which was used to carry post through central London
• 3:30pm Mysteries & ghosts of London Underground
  • A talk from a member of London Underground Staff, covering the baffling mysteries & ghosts on the Tube.

Monday 13th Sept

• 11am Silver Vaults
  • A virtual tour through the underground jewelers workshops of Hatton Garden
• 1:30pm Empire of Shadows
  • This talk explores Victorian London’s criminal underworld through the plays of the day.
• 4pm Into the Belly of the Beast: Exploring London’s Sewers
  • This talk will consider the allure of London’s sewers, past and present.

Yesterday, along with several hundred other equally excited people during the day, I finally got a chance to walk along a bit of train tunnel – yes the infamous Brunel Thames Tunnel that had been the topic of much news reporting over the past couple of days.

Turning up to Rotherhithe Station with tickets in hand, there were four handwritten signs on the windows warning that the tours were sold out. It seemed that earlier in the morning, the BBC had said that tickets were available, leading to a flood of soon to be disappointed visitors arriving clutching bank notes in the hope of a peek.

Also thanks to the somewhat anger inducing ticketing website operated by the LT Museum, there were people who thought they had booked a tunnel tour, but had actually only got tickets for the Victorian Fair and were being politely, but firmly told they couldn’t go down the tunnel. Even after I booked my tickets, was wasn’t 100% sure I had got what I thought I had asked for until the tickets arrived in the post and I could relax a bit.

After the usual heath and safety warnings about trip hazards and what to do if the lights go out (stand still) or an evacuation was needed (stand still), or feeling ill (stand still), we were handed over to our guide for the evening. A jolly chap from Chicago who only started working for the museum earlier that week. Not a bad start to a new job – take the first walking tours though a tunnel in some 145 years.

I am sure most people know the history of the tunnel – or you can look it up – so I wont recount the obvious here.

Slowly going down the tunnel, though we passed from the preserved original brick work into the newer concrete shield that was applied over the bricks when the tunnels were last modernised, rather controversially in 1995. I have sympathies with both sides of the argument, and in an ideal world, the tunnels should have been restored – but then again, why spend a fortune on brick work that frankly only maintenance staff would ever see?

Well, apart from a couple of thousand people this weekend of course – but even that rarity doesn’t justify not only the cost, but the extended closure of the line for the restoration. Sad, but true.

So down the tunnel as it gently sloped under the river, punctuated with short breaks for a bit of history, and then slowly back up again to stand in the very center of Wapping station in a spot that would be most unwise at any other time.

There were strict rules about not stepping on the rails, so small “bridges” not only took us from the one side to the other, but also offer elevated platforms for photography.

As an aside, we walked northwards on what is actually the southbound rail track – and visa versa on the way back.

Slowly heading back, without stops and back up and out into the fresh air once again.

OK, all we did was walk along a concrete lined tunnel – but if you are going to walk down a concrete lined tunnel, then this was the one you would have wanted to walk down.

Afterwards to the recreation of the Victorian Fair next to the Brunel Museum, and a chance to clamber through a tiny gap to get inside Brunel’s Shaft.

The museum curator gave a long, and innuendo laden speech about the history of the tunnel and regularly reminded visitors that today was the first time in 145 years that anyone had been able to stand in the shaft itself. Apart presumably those of us who had a look inside last year?

Although walking tours are probably never going to happen again, they will be resuming the tunnel tours they used to run with London Underground. Basically, a guided tour around the two stations at either end, linked up by a slow train trip through the tunnel and they arrange to turn on the floodlights, so you can see from inside a carriage what some of us lucky few got to see by foot. I had done that tour a few years ago, and they are actually good fun, so worth a visit when the line reopens again.

Brunel’s shaft is currently being converted into an extension for the museum, which will roughly triple the amount of space they have for displays, hopefully turning small incidental museum into a serious destination in its own right.

Obviously, I took tons of photos, and this time experimented again with taking HDR photos, most of which came out fairly well. The aim being to capture all the detail without needing a flash so that the photos reflect the dim light down there, without being too dark to see anything. In theory.

Pretty much every London based blogger worth the title has booked a tour and their reports can be found at:

853 – Diamond Geezer – The Great Wen (ex Time Out Big Smoke) – Annie Mole.

Blogless photographers include:

LondonStuff – mykreeve – webponce & mctumshie (who has lots more photos of the fair than the tunnel).

Lurking not too far from where I live is a subterranean marvel that is considered to be one of the most important locations in engineering history. I am referring to the currently closed off East London Line railway – for the tunnel it runs through under the Thames is world’s first (successful) sub-aqueous tunnel.

Not too far from the Rotherhithe tunnel is the Brunel Museum situated within an old pumping station, but conveniently next to the original deep shaft that Marc Brunel (father of more famous Isambard Kingdom Brunel) sunk into the clay soil to get down to the depth where the tunnel would stretch out under the river.

I won’t relate the torturous history of the tunnel itself – as that is amply told elsewhere, for my visit to was not to the tunnel but to the remains of that original shaft.

I arrived at at the museum just as a lot of people were filing out to go to the shaft, so I ahem, joined the crowd. I’ve been in the museum before as they used to run tours of the two key stations, Rotherhithe and Wapping and take a slow train between them.

As part of the refurbishment of the tunnels for the overland railway, the shaft, which has always been empty from surface to deep underground has had a slab of concrete installed and the upper space will be handed over to the museum to clean up and turn into an extension. As the slab was finished off only a few weeks ago – the opportunity here was to see the interior of the shaft before it is cleaned up again.

Getting in for visitors will be down a replica of the original stair case that lined the tunnel when it was open to pedestrians – but our access was through a tiny door that you quite literally had to crawl through and then down some scaffolding to the floor, which is about 3 stories below its roofline (and about 2 stories below ground).

Here lots of photos were taken and a volunteer gave us a brief run through why the shaft is so important in engineering history and some details of its construction.

In essence, they had a huge metal ring, upon which they started building a high wall. As the wall got heavier, it started sinking into the soft soil – aided by workers inside digging out that soil. More bricks added, and the shaft continues to sink into the ground. At one point it got stuck and even adding 50,000 bricks to the top of the shaft wouldn’t unstick the gigantic pipe.

Here there seems to be two variants of the solution – in essence, water leaking into the shaft normally lubricated the sides and one weekend the whole thing dropped down several metres. Whether this was an accidental switching off of the water pumps over a weekend that had a fortuitous outcome, or a deliberate decision seems to vary depending on who is telling the tale.

The shaft finally at its required depth, the tunnel under the river could be cut out. A similar shaft on the north side was also built – although two more shaft, four times wider to allow horses down to the tunnel never got built as some idiot stuck a bridge at Tower Hill and ruined the finances of the tunnel.

Talk over and a climb back out through the tiny exit, and that was it. A short visit, but this subterranean geek was bouncing with delight to have been able to have a look around.

I took a quick look around the museum and picked up a guide book that I would have brought last time I was there, only they couldn’t take cards and I was out of cash on the day. I also had a long chat with one of the staff about the pneumatic railway I am researching and he mentioned something about its precursor at Crystal Palace I wasn’t aware of. More research needed. Yay!

It was a shame we couldn’t go down to the original tunnels – but I have done a slow train tour through there before courtesy of the museum.

A slight rant – they let people into the shaft through a really tiny doorway – and yet other underground structures with significantly easier access points refuse to open up for the public visits due to “health & safety” concerns. That really annoys me as it quite evidently isn’t a problem.

As usual – more photos over at Flickr.