Released to tie in with an exhibition of the same name, this book is a picture rich journey through some of the disused and hidden spaces on the London Underground.
It’s a large book, and has taken the choice of focusing on a series of types of disused London Underground stations, from the lift shafts, closed stations, their headquarters, and the famously never opened North End station.
A chapter opens with details about one key station, which can seem a bit familiar if you’re a tube geek, but the thematic pages that follow will surprise many.
From disused shafts at Baker Street station to the story of the closed King William Street Station, and the wartime use of Down Street — then out to the edges of the city at Ongar and Varney Junction.
The writing is casual and conversational in tone, but the real detail is in the captions which often reveal far more interesting nuggets about the stations.
(c) LT Museum
The captions go with some exceptionally good photography of the disused stations as they are today, and they’ve raided deep into the archives to decorate the book with Edwardian engineering drawings of disused tunnels and plenty of archive photos of the stations when they were in use.
(c) LT Museum
Despite it’s size, thanks to the extensive use of photos and archive drawings, it’s not an especially long book to read, but it will leave you with a sense of longing to visit these hidden spaces.
For the photos and imagery alone, it’ll please any tube geek.
The book, Hidden London: Discovering the Forgotten Underground is available from the LT Museum, Amazon, Foyles or your preferred bookshop.
They used a similar title for the museum’s 2015/16 yearbook – basically a biennial report – “what has the museum been up to and what is it planning?”
The title on the cover, Hidden London, was in a roundel, but the writing was hidden under that silver scratchcard stuff that had to be attacked with a 2p piece!
Love the website! V, V disappointing book. Nothing new which has already not been done by J.E Connor, and John Gregg. All ‘stories’, no real history, and lumbering text.