Having a love-hate relationship with the Tube is just part of the package of being a Londoner.
While it’s one of the largest underground train networks in the world and makes navigating the sprawling English capital easy, constant delays can irk regular commuters.
Yet, the Tube is really quite miraculous. Transporting around five million passengers a day with over 543 trains operating at once during peak times, the tube has a long history and with it, a forgotten world that lies among the Tube network.
Released earlier this month, Hidden London: Discovering the Forgotten Underground was created by David Bownes, Chris Nix, Siddy Holloway and Sam Mullins of the London Transport Museum, with photography by Toby Madden and Andy Davis. The book, published by the Yale University Press, explored the abandoned stations, closed passageways and disused tracks of the Underground.
The imagery in the book delves into a deep-level shelter in Clapham South, the forgotten tunnels of Euston and the closed Aldwych station.
In conjunction with the book release, the London Transport Museum has released a new Piccadilly Circus tour that will lead guests behind secret doors and to passageways and shafts closed to the public since 1929. This joins the other Hidden Underground Tours from the London Transport Museum that cover Clapham South, Aldwych, Down Street and Euston.
For visitors wanting to get a taste of the subterranean world without going underground, the London Transport Museum is also opening a new Hidden London exhibition on October 11 with a number of rare archive photos, objects, vintage posters, secret diagrams and decorative tiles from the disused stations on display.
Click through the gallery above to see a selection of images from Hidden London: Discovering the Forgotten Underground.
Hidden London: Discovering the Forgotten Underground by David Bownes, Christopher Nix, Siddy Holloway and Sam Mullins is published by Yale University Press, £25. Buy it here.
