Tours of disused parts of the London Underground will resume in the New Year for the first time since March 2020, and tickets go on sale this coming Friday (3rd Dec).
Tours of Down Street, Aldwych, Euston and Moorgate stations will return, letting you explore disused tunnels, platforms and lift shafts that lie concealed just a stone’s throw away from unknowing modern-day commuters.
Tours will run on selected dates from January to March 2022.
Down Street and Euston tours will run from 15th January to 13th February 2021, while Aldwych and Moorgate tours will run from 2nd March to 27th March 2021
Also, just in time for Christmas – you can now give the gift of a Hidden London tour with a gift voucher, valid for any Hidden London event within a year of purchase
A new season of the Secrets of Central London walking tour of Covent Garden, Kingsway, Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Victoria Embankment will also be on sale, starting in January 2022.
The tours can be booked from here.
Euston: The Lost Tunnels
Tickets: Adult £41.50, Concessions £36.50.
Discover a secret side to a station you think you know on a tour that explores a century of Euston’s history. Wind through a labyrinth of atmospheric passageways beneath the present-day station that were once used by the travelling public. Glimpse a bygone era through a gallery of vintage advertising poster fragments, and see the original Leslie Green station facade before the site is transformed for the arrival of HS2.
Down Street: Churchill’s Secret Station
Tickets: Adult £85.00; Concession £80.00
Get an intimate peek into one of London’s most intriguing hidden spaces. Situated between Hyde Park Corner and Green Park stations, Down Street had a short life as a working station from 1907 to 1932 but became critical to winning the Second World War when covertly transformed into the Railway Executive Committee’s bomb-proof headquarters. Experience the warren of narrow tunnels where the nation’s railways were co-ordinated and Prime Minister Winston Churchill secretly took refuge at the height of the Blitz.
Aldwych: The End of the Line
Tickets: Adult £41.50, Concessions £36.50.
Experience a relic from London’s past. Opened to the public in 1907, Aldwych station was never heavily used and closed in 1994, after almost 90 years. The station has had a varied history; from providing shelter to Londoners during the Blitz, to being used for film and TV shoots including Darkest Hour (2017), Sherlock (2014), and Atonement (2007). Explore the original ticket hall, lift shafts, abandoned platforms and tunnels of this former termini of the Piccadilly line.
Moorgate: Metropolitan Maze
Tickets: Adult £41.50, Concessions £36.50.
Explore the many wonders of Moorgate station, one of London’s first Underground stations. See an original Greathead Shield left abandoned from a planned tunnel extension in 1904 – the only complete one of its kind on the Underground network. Explore a maze of disused tunnels and track left behind from station upgrades through the years, glimpse corridors lined with original glass tiles of the City and South London Railway – the world’s first deep-level underground railway – and discover how long-disused areas of the station have been ingeniously repurposed for a modern London.
Walking Tour – Secrets of Central London
Tickets: Adult £20, Concession £17.50
Discover the secrets of London on a walking tour of Covent Garden, Kingsway, Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Victoria Embankment. Join our expert guide and tour off the beaten path, down inconspicuous back streets to locations steeped in history hidden in plain sight. Find out how the area has transformed over the last 200 years and see abandoned transport infrastructure and remarkable feats of engineering that have shaped London.
At those prices…..HELL NO!!!
Only for the rich 🙁
I think at one time they were £75 so perhaps £40 is cheaper at least.
I do recall when them Brunel tunnel had tours on and no information was passed to local residents, it was simply sold to middle class people from the suburbs. At least when the Shard opened they let everyone local go up for free!
The Brunel tunnel tours were advertised heavily by the museum (and ahem, this website), even getting a news article on BBC News, which caused so much interest that it caused a problem with the ticket sales website.
Good grief! The price of entry! That’s a shame.
£ 41 ??? LOL better to spent £ 30 on the west wend musical or get yourself something nice to eat.
I’ll skip that Besides plenty of (Abandoned underground stations that are accessible for free)
We all like different things – not everyone is interested in West End musicals, or football matches, or big music concerts, but are interested in tours of disused tunnels.
The difference is do you sneer at people willing to pay the same as you for something different, or do you rejoice in the fact that humanity is so wonderfully varied and there’s plenty of space for people who like whatever it is they like?
Down Street at £80 each concession. I can’t tell you how out of sync with pensions and earnings this is. How very sad normal people can’t afford to go.
Putting on these tours is expensive, and the museum either has a choice of putting them on for those who can afford them, or not doing them at all. Do you, for example, wander past showrooms of things you (and I) can’t afford to buy and go inside berating them for not selling affordable items? Probably not, so why do it for tours like this?
That’s a very snobbish reply Ian.
I think people have the idea that as this is a publicly run railway, tours should be affordable. As I stated above, the museum has been known in the past to only advertise to certain people and ignore local residents. It isn’t a good situation I am afraid especially when these sorts of places bang on about being ethical.
>The Brunel tunnel tours were advertised heavily by the museum (and ahem, this website), even getting a news article on BBC News, which caused so much interest that it caused a problem with the ticket sales website.
Hi Ian, I appreciate what you are saying, I only knew about the tour because of your website. However the fact remains that the majority of local residents were unaware the tours were taking place. Right next to Rotherhithe station is a sheltered housing complex, and the residents at the time were very annoyed they were not given the opportunity to tour the tunnel given that many of them had lived in the area for their entire lives.
I would say the museum needs to do more to reach the local working class communities. Even if it is just a couple of tours at a discounted rate for locals. If they reach everyone and no one is interested, fair enough. My tour group was entirely middle class suburbs which really does not represent the area well.
I understand the museum has to fund the tours, but based on these tours it was very much creating a form of social cleansing. I don’t believe it was intentional and I can only base it on the queues I saw and what I experienced on my tour, but in this day and age, organisations need to be aware of the area and its people.
But I get the feeling the museum has no interest and this has become purely a commercial venture. I am always taken back to a tour at one of the disused stations some time ago where the main tour guide and aids constantly moaned about people taking photos. It may have changed now, but there is an air of arrogance in the organisation in my opinion.
Nevertheless, I am happy the public is given access to these locations, I only wish they would handle the tickets and advertising in a better way.
Disgraceful prices! Been waiting to do this since before Covid and thought I would finally check back as it’s always been on my bucket list . No go here . Mouths to feed.
Sad
Exhibitions of fine artists are cheaper than this