‘UNDER LONDON’ BY F. L. STEVENS 1939
He visits the pipe subways under Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square tube stations.
I WANTED to know more about London’s maze of underground arteries - the electric cables, gas-pipes, water-pipes, telephone wires, and the rest-which keep us warm, give us light, drive London’s lifts and adding machines, and make it possible for us to talk to people all over the world.
So I found myself in a taxi-cab, with three men who were more than willing to show me a few secrets of London’s underworld. We drew up at Piccadilly Circus, nearly opposite the London Pavilion, and stepped down right on top of a manhole lid. No time was wasted. The business-like man with the peaked cap and short jacket unlocked the manhole lid, the bolts were shot back, and there were the brick well and iron ladder leading down to Piccadilly’s underground circus. This time I was not so shy. I felt privileged and proud of it. ‘Come on,’ said the man, whose head was now level with the pavement. ‘Coming,’ said I, and looked round to see what kind of impression we were making. The hub of the universe was quite unconcerned. People brushed up against us and never once looked to see what it was all about. They walked on like folk in a trance - or sleep-walking. I sighed and went down. Within a few seconds we were in a wide brick tunnel, an airy place with a great flattened pipe curving up and down like the Loch Ness monster. They told me it carried the high-pressure water which drives the London lifts. Everything was silent and orderly, as neat as a well-kept cellar. Electric cables and a water main (looking like the barrel of a naval gun) were neatly tucked away, and there was plenty of room for more.
Now and again we had to scramble over the great back of a huge pipe and soon we came to a wide, steel-lined pit about thirty feet deep. I could see at the bottom of this pit the tunnel setting off again - forty or fifty feet below ground.
We climbed down a long ladder to the new tunnel built under Piccadilly Circus Underground booking-office. Here is an extraordinary collection of pipes and cables, all cleverly arranged so that they can be got at without any delay. Great brackets hold the Post Office cables, and one of them, coloured a vivid red, carries the calls to the fire brigade. We took many twists and turns and eventually climbed a long staircase to a tunnel which runs directly underneath Piccadilly Circus. Every now and then we found ourselves under a wide iron grid, the tradesmen’s entrance, so to speak, where the great pipes are hauled out and in.
When I stood beneath these large iron gratings, I could just see the roofs and upper windows of Piccadilly's shops and hotels. I enjoyed this splendid isolation - to be within a few feet of crowded streets and yet to be alone, or practically alone, gazing from this queer angle at the roofs of Piccadilly. At this point the subway is joined by lots of smaller tunnels which run out at right angles, and at the end of each of these small culs-de-sac is a round opening showing a patch of yellow light. It was curious to find this moon face constantly reappearing, and gazing at us as if to keep an eye on our solitary strolling under one of the world’s busiest roads.
I walked right round Piccadilly Circus, then under Shaftesbury Avenue, where we came up into the day-light. Down we went again under Charing Cross Road, where one of the newest tunnels carries its load of neatly packed pipes, and dives under the booking-office at Leicester Square tube station. At one point I caught a glimpse through the iron grating of the horses on top of the Hippodrome. They looked as if they were galloping into space. Then quite suddenly I found myself crossing an iron plank over a deep pit.
‘Watch your step,’ said my companion. He was right. I watched it pretty closely, and, looking over an iron barrier, saw a ladder, gripped firmly to the wall, and running down into the shaft.
‘Are we climbing down that?’ I asked, hoping he would not catch a slight note of anxiety in my voice. ‘No, that’s if you want to get out quick,’ he said. So back we went and walked comfortably down a long staircase which ran between steel shelves looking like bunks in a ship that had stuck in the trough of a very stormy sea. It was all very neat and tidy, but a bit weird. On each side of us were the steel arms carrying their loads of cables. Now and then a smaller tunnel appeared at our feet, just a black mouth swallowing its meal of pipes, and at the foot of this subterranean hill we turned again and found ourselves standing on the edge of a deep well nearly full of clear and very cold water. That well catches all the water which drains into it from the surrounding earth, and it can be pumped dry in a minute or two.
My underground trip covered a small corner of the subways specially built to carry London’s various pipes and cables. Had I preferred it, I could have walked underground from Boadicea’s statue on the Embankment to the Mansion House, or from Piccadilly Circus to High Holborn; under Commercial Road, Whitechapel (where I should have seen two gas-pipes each four feet across); from Tottenham Court Road to the National Gallery, or at a number of other places.
The London County Council own twenty-four of these tunnels - nine miles altogether. They vary from six to twelve feet in height, and are built to make it easy for the various authorities to get at their cables and pipes without pulling the road up. The smallest of these subways, at the Marble Arch, is only thirty-five yards long, the longest, under the Victoria Embankment, is more than a mile; the oldest, under Garrick Street, was built in 1861. No doubt, as opportunity arises, new subways will be built, but I doubt if Londoners will ever be able to say that all their power-lines, gas-pipes, and water-pipes are lying neatly tucked away in underground roads where they can be reached without the need for blasting the road surface. Still, a beginning has been made. Consider some of the undertakings served by these subways: gas, electricity, water, tele-communications, lighting, and hydraulic power, London Transport, Borough Councils; and I noticed in my journeys a new-comer, looking very sleek and well dressed – cable television.
Very great care is taken to safeguard anybody working in these underground roads. Nobody is allowed down unless a watchman is on top, and if a blowlamp has to be used for repairs or extensions, then the spot where the work is to be done is first tested for gas by an inspector of the London County Council. Every day these subways are patrolled and inspected
The junction of Shaftesbury Avenue on the left with Piccadilly Circus
Swan and Edgar from below