The abandoned underground station that kept Sir Winston Churchill safe and helped win World War 2 | The Sun
12/20/2022AN ABANDONED tube station in London kept Sir Winston Churchill safe during World War 2 – and it can still be visited by tourists.
Down Street was briefly used as a working station from 1907 to 1932 but its most important role was to protect the Prime Minister and help him win the Second World War.
The station was covertly transformed into the Railway Executive Committee’s bomb-proof headquarters.
From there Sir Winston Churchill hid during bombing raids on the capital and plotted the Allied Forces' ultimately successful war efforts.
The station was chosen to be turned into a bunker in early 1939, to protect government operations from bombing.
The platform faces were bricked up and platform areas and passages were turned into offices, meeting rooms and dormitories.
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Siddy Holloway, Engagement Manager for London Transport Museum's Hidden London, told Sun Online Travel how secret the station was kept during the war.
She said: "The Churchill secret station is Down Street, which is between Hyde Park Corner and Green Park.
"They're a warren of narrow tunnels where the nation’s railways were coordinated, and where Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill secretly took refuge at the height of the Blitz.
"It's a great example of a place which was shrouded in secrecy – people had to sign the Official Secrets Act in order to go there.
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6"The whereabouts of the Prime Minister was the highest state secret and to be able to bring people in there, is incredible."
Hidden London tours can take people into the station and provide them with an intimate peek into one of London’s "most intriguing hidden spaces".
People are taken into the twisting tunnels, hidden among the working underground network, and shown exactly where Churchill took refuge.
Siddy continued: "It's not a museum, it's a living breathing station with trains going past and, you have to be careful with light in certain places because you don't want to startle the drivers on the Piccadilly line, and so it's completely unique.
"There's no other way that you could do that."
While tickets for that tour aren't currently on sale, they will be not long into the new year.
Siddy added: "Tickets for that will be on sale next year some time beyond February, so if people are really interested in coming to see that I highly recommend keeping an eye out on the newsletter and then they'll they'll know when those are available."
Down Street is not the only of the stations to have been important during World War 2, with other stations the perfect places to take care of both people and important items.
Siddy said: "Piccadilly Circus actually operated as both the public bomb shelter and as a valuable art store for the London museums.
"That blows my mind that you can go through Piccadilly Circus hundreds, if not thousands of times in your life and never would you imagine that some of the most precious artefacts of either the Museum of London or the Tate galleries, were stored in a corridor just off where you could wait as a passenger today.
"Clapham South, with the deep level shelter that we have, is one of my favourite places on our program because it is essentially an air raid shelter underneath Clapham South Station.
"It comprises of over a mile of tunnel and could have housed 8000 people to shelter away from the bombs raining from above."
A new series of tickets for tours of those two stations are now on sale. The tours will take place from January 4 until February 19.
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Meanwhile, film buffs can also take tours of an underground station that has featured in some of Hollywood's biggest movies.
And tourists can also stay in a secret wizard's chambers in London, with magic potions and a broomstick.
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