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Explore deep-level World War II air raid shelters and complex historical subterranean networks...
中克拉芬南（Clapham South）和摩尔门（Moorgate）这两个站点的相关历史、秘密或冷知识的探讨内容....
中克拉芬南（Clapham South）和摩尔门（Moorgate）这两个站点的相关历史、秘密或冷知识的探讨内容....
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TVTranscript
00:04in a collection all about London's tube network you probably expect to find iconic signs seat
00:11fabric and uniforms but why on earth would you have in it a recipe book one with instructions
00:18on how to make ham roly-poly and even Swiss tarts it's time to unearth the secrets of the London
00:25underground I'm Tim Dunn and in this series I'll reveal the tube network as you've never seen it
00:32before Wow what a space that's extraordinary isn't it the secret chambers behind locked doors each with
00:40their own fascinating story to tell well this is a bit bizarre isn't it a ticket office underground it
00:46is my fellow Explorer is city Holloway such a rare find who knows every inch of these abandoned
00:54time capsules and has the keys to open them up and show me places that have never been seen before
01:01nobody would look for a nuclear bunker in a middle of suburban Hampstead and we'll dive into the history
01:08of stations and lines I'm gonna say it now it is really spooky using the archives here at the depot
01:15of the London Transport Museum oh wow this is my kind of archive this is fab it's crammed with the
01:24secrets
01:24of the london underground the london transport museums depot in west london is full of metro memorabilia as well as
01:50being a retirement home for vintage tube
01:52carriages old signals and signage the huge hangar houses smaller items no less remarkable which open a window on london's
02:02rich social history
02:05this recipe book makes fantastic reading it's full of slightly bizarre sounding wartime dishes which put it firmly in the
02:14era of rationing it was used to repair food in the london transport staff canteens but it also served
02:21another purpose this remarkable little book was used to cater for the tens of thousands of people who slept in
02:28shelters deep beneath london streets during the war there were eight of those shelters and city has promised to show
02:35me the most impressive of them
02:46clapham common is a large open green space in quite a fancy part of south london there are two tube
02:54stations
02:55one on each side of the common but cities not asked me to meet her at either of those instead
03:02the focus appears to be this rather unattractive concrete building right next to the south circular
03:12sid what on earth is this structure so this structure well we're basically standing on top of it really
03:19um is one of eight deep level shelters that was built for the protection of londoners during the second world
03:25war
03:26who built it well london transport actually built them but they were commissioned by the government
03:32and the reason was because as you well know a lot of people sought shelter in the underground during the
03:38second world war particularly during the blitz
03:41but the underground is not built to be a bomb shelter so there were some incidents where unfortunately people lost
03:49their lives
03:50in fact just down the road at balham there was a bomb that exploded in october 1940 and it flooded
03:57the underground station where loads of people were sheltering
03:59and unfortunately killed quite a few of them and they realized that they needed to build proper purpose-built shelters
04:07for londoners to be able to well sleep in over overnight let's go and explore shall we yeah let's do
04:13it
04:14city has the keys and as people go about their daily business in clapham i'm lucky enough to be able
04:21to disappear
04:22through this unassuming door to a whole new world
04:28all these cyclists and runners probably have no idea this building is actually one of two entrance halls to a
04:36massive nighttime air raid shelter
04:39the building of which started just six weeks after the awful balham disaster
04:46so it's a little bit confusing when you come here at the first time
04:49but there were two entrances into the structure below
04:53so you see there are some shelter names on this side
04:56yes
04:57but there are also some shelter names on that side
04:59and this particular room was the warden's kind of ticket office if you would
05:05so when you came into the shelter you would come into this room
05:09the warden would sit here and they would check your ticket
05:12and depending on what the letter on the ticket would say
05:15it would tell you to go this way or to tell you to go that way down to the lower
05:19level
05:19but how did you get a ticket in the first place?
05:21if you were bombed out or you were in need of shelter
05:24you could go to your local council and apply for a ticket with your nearest deep shelter
05:30so really anyone in south london could go and say i would like a ticket to this particular shelter
05:35i reckon you should go that side
05:38you're gonna go to the upper half
05:40okay
05:40i'll go to that side and i'll see you over there
05:42see you down there
05:43yeah
05:48the other entrance was just down the road on balham hill
05:51having two allowed up to 8 000 people to enter the shelter in less than an hour
06:01another clever architectural feature helped to speed up entry
06:07oh hello
06:08there you are
06:09so we're now stood at the top of the double helix staircase
06:13so as you see you've got a staircase over there
06:15i've got a staircase over here
06:17so they lead to different parts of the shelter below
06:20so if you go down that one and i go down this one
06:24we won't actually meet each other below ground
06:27so instead let's go together
06:29i'll come back over to your side
06:35it's a long way down
06:37180 steps i'm told
06:39at the bottom there's over a mile of tunnels
06:44it would be very easy to get lost in here
06:46but this being london transport
06:48they came up with some classic tube style signage
06:52to help disorientated visitors
06:54now this has really intrigued me
06:56walking past it
06:58why are they different names
07:00i'm guessing there's a b c d
07:02yes
07:03well done
07:04yeah exactly
07:05so it's trying to tell you
07:06where in the shelter you're supposed to go
07:07so
07:08anson beattie collingwood drake
07:10evans freemantle grenville hardy
07:12so a b c d
07:13but what have all of these names got in common
07:17there's a common theme
07:18throughout all of these
07:19and particularly if you think of
07:21hardy
07:22or maybe a francis drake
07:25i'm listening to something you know
07:26perhaps a little maritime linking
07:28exactly
07:29so these are all
07:30admirals vice-admirals
07:32or high-ranking members of the navy
07:34here it's nautical
07:36in other shelters
07:37it was you know
07:37british poets and writers
07:39british engineers
07:40so on and so forth
07:45it really is like being in an underground station
07:49although unlike the tube shelter tickets were free
07:53and there were no trains
07:55or so i thought
07:57come on in
07:59well this isn't spanky is it
08:01so i'm gonna close the door first
08:04and when you're ready
08:06oh isn't it dark
08:07and that's the tube going over our heads
08:10so look over there
08:16wow
08:20what a space
08:22that's extraordinary isn't it
08:23this was one of the navy inspired dormitories
08:27and the reason you can hear the tube
08:30is because this huge shelter runs directly beneath the northern line
08:34through clapham south station
08:36we're 30 meters below the surface
08:39more than twice the depth of neighboring balham station
08:43this is essentially a full-size railway tunnel that we're stood in
08:48that's how it feels isn't it
08:49it feels like you're in the top half probably
08:52of a tube station
08:53or one of those interlinking tunnels that you get around the tube
08:56yeah exactly except this is a little bit bigger than a normal tube
08:59a tube one would be about 12 feet in diameter
09:02this is 16.6 so it's a little bit bigger
09:06we're stood here in hardy
09:08which is leading all the way down here
09:11and as you can see the tunnels are essentially just two tunnels that run
09:15alongside one another
09:18and this is the upper half and this is the lower half
09:21but why were these locations chosen and why put them underneath a tube station
09:27when you build anything underground you need to make sure that you've got the permission of what's above it
09:33of course
09:33to actually build something
09:35now with the tube they already had an entire tube station and a railway going above this
09:41secondly it was very convenient for it to be underneath a tube station
09:46because it meant that they could connect the two together
09:49and so people could go from the tube station itself the platforms down to the shelters
09:54without actually having to go above ground
09:57and therefore being at risk of being bombed whilst doing so
10:02amazingly the entire shelter was dug out in just 18 months
10:06but by the time it was finished in autumn 1942
10:10the aerial bombardment of London had largely ended
10:15it wasn't until July 1944 and the beginning of the V1 and V2 rocket attacks on the capital
10:22that the shelter became operational
10:25over the course of the next few months there was a total of 27 V1 and V2 strikes on Clapham
10:32and neighbouring Brixton
10:3472 people died in those attacks but the shelter saved many more lives
10:41in those attacks
10:41do these look generally as they would have looked when they were first open painted like this
10:46yes they would have been painted white
10:48largely to make the space seem brighter bigger
10:53it would have felt very clean
10:55very very different from the experience of the tube shelterer
10:59where you know you were cramped on a platform and it was dirty and dusty
11:04these were advertised as underground palaces
11:08you know bright beautiful safe
11:10with toilets and canteens
11:13and you know a place where you could kind of call home underground
11:37city and I are exploring Clapham South's purpose-built Second World War air raid shelter
11:4430 metres below Clapham Common
11:47a mile of tunnels offered refuge to thousands of Londoners every night
12:00to maximise space each of these tunnels has two decks
12:04we've come downstairs to the bottom section
12:07where you can clearly see the supports for the floor above
12:15amazingly on this level the original 80 year old bed frames have been left in place
12:25this is where people would have slept
12:28families would be allocated kind of little bays to kind of stay together
12:32so one family would have this bay here
12:35the next family would have that one and so on and so forth
12:38this is what it looked like
12:40so you see there's a small child sleeping here and a lady minding it
12:45you can see that the longitudinal bunks were actually a little bit wider
12:49so they were reserved for nursing mothers or anyone with kind of particular ailments for example
12:55or the elderly
12:57it must have got really hot and full surely when it's full of people
13:02well this is what we always thought as well that it would have been really quite stuffy in here
13:07funnily enough we know it was the opposite that it was almost quite cold in here
13:13and that's because the ventilation system in here is so incredibly efficient
13:18so at the end of each one of those shafts one of which we entered through
13:22at the bottom of it are two giant fans and they are pulling and pushing air out of this shelter
13:31there are some extraordinary first-hand accounts of life in the shelter
13:35a woman called Margaret Barford lived here with her family for two years after their home had been destroyed by
13:42a V1 rocket
13:43she was ten years old at the time she recorded her memories in 2016
13:50it was extremely cold the air conditioning used to come on full blast in the night
13:57it was really cold
13:59couldn't hear anything from up the bombing or anything up the top
14:03which was quite eerie because I've been used to bombing every night
14:06all you got was loudspeakers with notices coming over and some music sometimes
14:15looking back it must have been terrible for my parents
14:18I must be honest I had a wonderful time
14:21I was an only child
14:23I made friends
14:24quite honestly I enjoyed it because I thought it was fun
14:28you know to me this was norm
14:32as long as I was with my mum and dad
14:34I didn't mind
14:38the shelter was only open overnight between 7pm and 7am
14:44and the only washing facilities down here were some basins
14:48meaning many people needed to find alternative bathing facilities
14:52and what about food because you're getting here early evening
14:56surely you've got to get some kind of food
14:58well just above you there you see there's a canteen
15:01pointing just that the canteens were incredible
15:05they were off rations meaning if you could afford the food that they served you could have as much as
15:11you wanted
15:12so we know that they sold things such as sausage rolls jam tarts which I mean
15:18I'm just heavenly after all those years of ration
15:22I do remember distinctly jam tarts
15:25and I couldn't remember having jam tarts at home because you couldn't get them
15:29I don't know where they got them from but these jam tarts were fantastic
15:34I think it's such a wonderful image that you have gone through all of that
15:40but at least you know by the end of the war you're kind of being kept safe warm and comfortable
15:46in this little palace underground in Clapham
16:08but the story of Clapham South's wartime shelter doesn't end with peace in 1945
16:17to find out what happened next city has left me with Chris Nix her colleague from the museum
16:23he's been researching this enormous shelters post-war history
16:27this shelters World War two life is obviously key to its creation
16:32but what happened after the war in 1945 when the war came to an end
16:37people's homes of course have been destroyed they needed somewhere to live
16:41so it continued its life as a hostel and people who had sheltered here during the war carried on living
16:47here at night
16:48people who wanted to visit London found it very difficult to find accommodation
16:53because a lot of hotels have been bombed as well
16:56and so for a shilling a night you could have a bed here and some very basic facilities to live
17:03we had wealthy Americans coming over to London had to stay here because there wasn't anywhere else
17:10and children from all over Europe were coming to the UK for holidays
17:16being put out to host families well they came here first
17:19they landed at Tilbury were bussed here had one night here before they went out to their host families
17:25this became like a staging post then before people went off to different locations
17:29that's right and that really is how it came to be that in June of 1948
17:35236 people from the Empire Windrush made the same journey from Tilbury to here
17:41whilst they found jobs and accommodation
17:44the Empire Windrush was the ship which carried just over a thousand passengers from the Caribbean
17:50hoping for a new life in Britain
17:53the ship docked at Tilbury on the 22nd of June 1948
17:59and those who hadn't already found accommodation were housed temporarily at the shelter
18:05we're actually sat in the place where many of them found their jobs
18:10so this is a photo of the former canteen and it was repurposed into a labour exchange
18:16and you can see there the British citizens from Jamaica waiting in a line to see what job they might
18:24be able to get from the labour exchange
18:28this remarkable shelter became a stepping point for so many
18:33after the horrors of war after moving to Britain people's new lives started here
18:41the shelter was still offering temporary accommodation well into the 1950s
18:46visitors to the 1951 festival of Britain on London's South Bank could stay here for three shillings a night
18:53about a fiver in today's money
18:57some of the walls bear the marks of the people who stayed here after the war
19:02the absolute best ones are just here
19:05I think they're the best anyway
19:07so just look there
19:08this one
19:10in these three beds have slept three raving beauties
19:14one two three there you go
19:16and then if we come back a bit further
19:18this one's even better for me
19:19Helga Schlotz from Germany
19:22oh look at that
19:23you know this is 1952
19:26so seven years after the war
19:28we're welcoming German visitors to come
19:30and have a look around London
19:32and sleep
19:33in these beds
19:39these messages are a lovely record of the cross-section of the lives of people that have existed down here
19:47it's such an evocative place
19:49but I can't stop thinking about those jam tarts
19:54in a moment back at the depot
19:56I'm going to dig into that fascinating recipe book
19:59which gives its own insight into life deep underground
20:15The London Transport Museum's depot is a treasure trove of tube travel
20:20charting the 150-year story of the London Underground
20:26hidden amongst the 320,000 items is this
20:31the London Transport Cookery Book
20:33first published in 1941
20:36it was used by canteen staff who catered for thousands of tube and bus workers
20:41but its recipes also inspired the food on offer in the deep shelters
20:48food historian Lizzie Collingham is going to help me make sense of this fascinating culinary instruction manual
20:55written when Britain was in the grip of wartime rationing
21:03right at the beginning miscellaneous hints
21:06number 10
21:07tea packets must not be opened until tea is actually required for brewing
21:11and then it has to be heated in a brewing jug for 10 minutes timed by an alarm clock
21:17so it absolutely has to be 10 minutes
21:19and then strained into a teapot which should be stood on the gas hot plate
21:23tea must not be served until it has been brewed for 10 minutes
21:27everything is mandated isn't it
21:29it is really setting quite rigid standards for how to make tea
21:32so it tells you that as from March the 11th
21:361940 meat rationing had come into force
21:39meats then rationed were beef, mutton, lamb, pork, veal
21:43any part of the carcass including mince and pie meat
21:45but you could have unrationed meats
21:48were game, poultry, rabbits and all offals
21:51and there's a lot of recipes in there for offal-y sort of things like hearts
21:56doesn't that make sense?
21:58yeah
21:58absolutely
21:59and then very interesting they have an injunction on sugar on cakes
22:04so after the 5th of August 1940
22:07no sugar may be put on the outside of any cake, bun or pastry after baking
22:13so absolutely
22:15and then there are amendments to existing recipes
22:18Tottenham cake
22:19instead of icing sugar paint with warm jam
22:22and oh they were sprinkling it with desiccated coconut
22:25that sounds delicious
22:26that wouldn't be too bad, warm jam
22:30this is the chance people have down in those shelters
22:34of buying in some of that extra sugar, extra calories
22:37extra calories
22:38and tasty food
22:39you know that somebody had had the time to cook in an oven
22:43and you know if you're running off to the shelter
22:46you haven't got time in the evening to do that
22:48so yeah, you could get a nice warm meal
22:50it must have been comforting
22:51absolutely
22:52very comforting
22:53but the thing I really like Liz's take on
22:56is that ham roly-poly recipe
22:58let's have a look
22:59so ham roly-poly, yes
23:02so this is an addendum
23:03so maybe added in 1946
23:05to reflect how things had changed during the war
23:09so you've got pudding dough
23:11so that's quite nice and stodgy
23:13minced onion or leek
23:15so they're using leeks as a substitute
23:17ham scraps or flank bacon
23:19and a pinch of mixed herbs
23:21ham roly-poly is just basically a steamed pudding
23:24with a bit of ham in
23:25in the 17th century
23:26they first invented the idea of wrapping a pudding dough in linen
23:32and boiling it in the water
23:33and that would have been absolutely what farm labourers ate
23:36and you might have eaten ham roly-poly or whatever with treacle on
23:40or you know there wasn't the sweet savoury divide that we have now
23:43so that's just going right back to an old English recipe really
23:47so they did nothing new
23:48these are kind of just adaptations of finding things from the past
23:51and making them more usable for a really big catering organisation
23:56where was the food made?
23:58so they make it in big canteens
24:01and then they actually used the tube trains to transport it to the shelters
24:05where people could warm it
24:07the workers warmed it up for everybody
24:09and so that was how they got it around the system
24:12well I don't know about you but I'm feeling a little bit peckish now
24:15we should go and have a cup of tea
24:17or we should brew it for 10 minutes
24:33for me the tube is what I get home after a night on the tiles
24:38but since meeting Sidi
24:40I've realised the tiles are more important than the night out
24:45tiling on the tube is ubiquitous
24:47many of the early tube stations were tiled in distinctive colours and patterns
24:52and here in the depot there are drawers full of them
24:57I'm meeting Chris Nix again
24:59this time in the small artefact store
25:02now Chris you know I'm a massive fan of ceramics
25:06and the tiles across the network have been saved haven't they for the museum
25:11yes a great number of them survive here having been taken off the walls
25:16for various reasons like improvements of stations
25:18well let's start in the ticket hall where you kind of first go in
25:21and you might recognise some of these
25:23oh they're splendid aren't they
25:25there are two designs the more common one is the acanthus leaf pattern
25:29as we can see here and there that's the way up that you would normally see them
25:34yes
25:34and these are some which came from Baker Street
25:36and then this is the more rare one
25:38the pomegranate design just there
25:42Holloway Road for example
25:45these distinctive Art Nouveau tiles were designed by the architect Leslie Green
25:49he'd been commissioned to create a unified style for the London Underground in the late 19th century
25:56was the green a standardised colour across the network
25:59yes it was it's very much part of the identity
26:01of course the slight batch variation you can see here
26:04this is roughly in the middle where you'd expect it
26:07you can see this one
26:08it's been olive green isn't it friendly
26:10that one's nicer in my view
26:11and this one's much darker
26:13but I think this kind of more centre colour is what we normally see
26:17why have they clearly spent so much money on making these lovely tiles
26:23why don't they have painted walls
26:24well one they're easy to maintain
26:26throw a bucket of water over them
26:28mop them down they look good as new
26:30and also those unique colour patterns for each station means it's easier to navigate the system
26:37that is absolutely beautiful
26:38and how do these differ from the tiles we have in our bathrooms or kitchens
26:42well um number one the glaze on them will be a lot richer than most domestic tiles
26:48and the second thing is if you flip them over your tiles won't have that
26:53no what are they?
26:55key stoning
26:55and this is what allows you to have a tile hanging from a ceiling in a tiling band or on
27:02a wall
27:02with trains shaking it every day without it falling off
27:07and what happens is when the cement bed is wet and this is pushed into it
27:12the cement hooks into
27:14you just see there's that sort of hook there
27:16and once it sets that won't come out without either the cement breaking or the tile breaking
27:22and that's why it's so rare to be able to get these off the wall in one piece
27:27because the tile would rather snap in two
27:30uh... or into several pieces
27:32than give up the fight to stay on the wall
27:36now i know you're not supposed to have favorites
27:38but you must have a favorite tile go on
27:41it is like children you're really not supposed to have a favorite
27:44but there is one that i've dedicated quite a lot of my life to
27:47so that's probably the one i should show you
27:49oh yes please
27:58and uh... yeah just here
28:01this looks rather special
28:02it's got its own little box
28:03it is
28:04this tile uh... used to be at Euston station on the wall
28:09and it's the only known surviving makers tile made of glass
28:14oh wow
28:15because the city in south london railway used to like to use glass for its reflective properties
28:20so to help the feeble lights bounce the light around
28:23and i picked it out of the dirt in a passageway
28:28in a disused part of Euston station a couple of years ago
28:32and we had a skilled glass conservator put it back together
28:36some of it was just powder mixed with dirt
28:40and the really lovely thing is you see just how thin it is
28:44it is actually wafer thin piece of glass isn't it
28:47almost like a razor blade
28:48yeah
28:49and whilst i've turned it over on the back
28:51we were talking about keystoning on the backs of the tiles and all as the green stations
28:55this is a much earlier method
28:58um... where can you see it's got bitumen applied to the back
29:01and whilst that bitumen was setting they would blind it with sand
29:05just by dashing sand onto it
29:07once that's set it does the same job as the keystone on the back of the other tile
29:12push it into the cement the sand keys into the cement and won't let go
29:16and that is why that's broken
29:19because when it came off the wall just smashed into many many pieces rather than let go of the wall
29:25and that was put there in 1907
29:28so for it still to survive is great
29:31the other tiles that we've looked at are by two manufacturers that are quite well known
29:35Simpsons and the other one was Williscroft
29:37however Neuralite made the other kind of tile that would be found on the tube
29:44is it kind of like a signature I suppose by the artists
29:46an autograph
29:47yeah
29:48is it one per station or loads of them
29:50you would usually find them by the lift shafts
29:53we do occasionally get them on the platforms as well
29:55but by the lift shafts was typical
29:57and that's where this was
29:58and that's where many of the ones that survive today can be found as well
30:02by the old lift shafts
30:04wouldn't it be great to see these rare glass tiles in their original location
30:09on the walls of an actual tube station
30:14if anyone knows where to find them it's CIDI
30:45I absolutely love this metropolitan line carriage it's eight isn't it I used to go to school on these things
30:53did you really wow
30:54I'm that old
30:55I love the maquette I think it's really beautiful
30:57it's fab it really is fab
30:59we're not here to talk about the train
31:02we're talking about one of the places this train would have passed through
31:05yes you're right
31:07well I've been to Moorgate in the city which is a fascinating station which has been constantly changing since it
31:15first opened over 150 years ago
31:18well I guess because all the new lines arriving because you've got the metropolitan line you've got the circle line
31:23hammers within the city
31:25yep
31:25and the northern
31:26yes and national rail services
31:29and it's got the most extraordinary thing hidden in the ground there the machine that bore the tunnels
31:37oh fantastic
31:55it may not look like it from the outside but Moorgate is actually one of London's oldest underground stations
32:03after opening in December 1865 as a metropolitan railway station which was on the surface at that point the deep
32:12level underground arrived in February 1900
32:17this was an extension of the line from borough by deep tunnel pioneers the city and south London railway
32:24it's better known today of course as the bank branch of the northern line
32:32the fact that Moorgate has seen continual change since then means that some parts of the station were made redundant
32:40in the march of progress
32:4225 meters below ground level is one of these disused parts
32:47where wonderful remnants of Moorgate's first deep level underground station can be discovered
32:53as long as you have a special key
33:11remember the delicate glass tile in Chris's padded box
33:15well this tunnel is covered in them
33:19this is amazing so these are original tiles from the city and south London railway
33:27and actually the number of broken tiles here shows just how fragile they are
33:37this has been here for over 120 years still in situ
33:42and still as kind of luminous as ever
33:46even though the deep level trains were powered by electricity from the outset
33:50the platforms were lit by gas lighting and contemporary writers noticed the darkness of the stations
33:57one wrote lighted dimly from above this cavern of dingy yellow
34:03another described the familiar sulfurous gloom of the station
34:12when Moorgate's deep level platform first opened in 1900
34:16the escalator had just been introduced to Britain
34:19and there wouldn't be one on the London underground until 1911
34:23at Earl's Court
34:25so stations like this one relied on lifts
34:29today these 20 meter high lift shafts and access tunnels
34:32are like a labyrinth just waiting to be explored
34:39some of the old subways have been repurposed to service the modern underground
34:47wow
34:49that is by far the largest fan I have ever seen on the London underground
34:56I mean it looks about as big as a jet engine on a passenger plane
35:01now this is used to ventilate the deep tube part of the station here
35:07so during the summer when it gets really hot this is switched on to help cool
35:11but my goodness
35:13it's making me a bit nervous standing right next to it
35:16because if somebody switches it on right now
35:18imagine how powerful it is
35:21don't worry they know I'm down here
35:25most of the heat on the tube is generated by trains applying their brakes
35:30and so this fan works by pushing the heat along the tunnels and out through ventilation shafts
35:38temperatures on the underground have increased over the decades as the London clay around the tunnels has become saturated with
35:45heat from the trains
35:47when it first opened the underground was actually advertised as a place to keep cool on hot days
35:53hard to imagine that now when you're traveling on the northern line on a sticky summer's day
36:01back upstairs at the level of the metropolitan line
36:04I've been given special permission to access the disused tracks of Moorgate's Thameslink service which stopped running in 2009
36:23I'm standing in what is known as the catacombs of Moorgate and just on the other side of this wall
36:29is the running of the metropolitan line
36:31now this space was used as additional platforms for both underground and mainline trains
36:37now what's amazing standing here is to think that this concrete roof above me
36:43is the canopy that holds up the entire Barbican estate
36:50and just up that way
36:52is Barbican station
37:09I'm finishing my exploration of Moorgate by heading to a part of the deep station many people don't know about
37:17the platforms of the northern city line not to be confused with the northern line
37:22today it's a national rail service
37:25built in 1904
37:26it was originally known as the Great Northern and City Railway
37:31and its tunnels were 4 feet wider than the conventional 12 foot underground tunnels
37:36that allowed overground trains to run from Finsbury Park into Moorgate
37:42the labourers who built these tunnels over a century ago
37:45left an unusual object behind that I have to show you
37:49and I get excited every time I see it
37:53it's called a great head shield and it's a protective structure
37:57which allowed deep tunnels to be dug safely by hand
38:02this is the only great head shield left in place on the entire London Underground
38:08this is such a rare thing to see
38:11that you know every time I bring people here I struggle almost to explain it
38:16so this is the mechanism that allowed most of the deep tube of the underground to be built
38:23it's basically a 16 feet wide ring of metal armour which protected labourers whilst they were excavating
38:30as they dug they moved the shield forward progressively replacing it with pre-built sections of tunnel wall
38:39in each one of these compartments would have been a person working around the clock with using picks and axes
38:45and what not
38:46excavating all of the spoil and then bringing it out on a small railway
38:51the great head shield was named after its engineer inventor James Henry Great Head
38:58this one was abandoned here in 1904 when plans to extend the line further south were scrapped
39:05if this wasn't here literally stuck to the fabric of the station
39:10this would belong in a museum that's how rare it is
39:14it's a true relic of the past and it basically dictates how we still create tunnels today
39:23it's the same principle just a bit more high tech
39:29so as you go about your daily journeys at Moorgate
39:32take a moment to stop and remember the treasures
39:35just on the other side of the wall from the bustling platforms
39:43most of the great head shields were abandoned in the earth when construction of the underground lines was completed
39:49so there isn't one in the depot
39:52but there are these objects which certainly look like they come from a tunnel
39:58I'm hoping Transport for London engineer Mohamed Gujar can share some light on them
40:05these really intrigue me because as museum objects they're very large
40:10but what are they?
40:12so these are the original cast iron tunnel rings that were built in some of the earliest ones here
40:19were in operation in 1890 as part of a city in south London line
40:23that is remarkable but today how do we build them?
40:26is it concrete or do you still use iron and steel?
40:28the vast majority of the type of rings we build today will be fibre reinforced concrete
40:32it's just a lot cheaper and easier than using cast iron
40:35the forces on a tunnel are incredible?
40:37they can be so our deepest tunnels are under the Hampstead Heath
40:41they're about 60 metres deep
40:42they're under significant load there
40:44albeit when they were built there was fears that they were going to drain the water out of the heath
40:48and kill all the trees on them
40:49but I think that hasn't come to pass over the last hundred years
40:52but they are under incredible force
40:55but what about that huge great head tunnelling shield City showed us at Moorgate?
41:01essentially it's probably best to think of it as a can without a hollow cylinder
41:06at the front you've got a cutting edge
41:08so it's got a sharp edge on the outside
41:10but essentially it's open
41:11what that does is it allows miners to access what we call the face, so the clay
41:16at the back of a shield you've got a number of jacks
41:19and what they do is you start off with a ring
41:23and then once you've built that ring
41:25you want the tunnelling machine to go forward
41:27so that you've got space to build another ring
41:29so those jacks will push off that last ring
41:32until there's enough space
41:33they retract the jacks
41:35they can put the next ring in
41:36push up to that and then start the whole process again
41:40Has much changed in the concept of how you build tunnels from then to now?
41:46The tunnel boring machines of today work in exactly the same way
41:49they are far more complicated, they are far more advanced, they are incredibly more mechanised
41:56however the general principle that excavation happens at the face
42:00there's a protected shield
42:02and then at the back you're putting segments up
42:04remains as it was when Greyhead had his shield
42:09So out on the network, whereabouts are the oldest tunnels now?
42:14So the oldest of the deep tube tunnels between Borough and Stockwell
42:18we actually still run through the same tunnels
42:20they've been expanded to fit the trains we now have
42:22so they've been in use now for 130 plus years
42:25That's remarkable, extraordinary, it really is
42:28I mean, it's a living museum in parts
42:30Yes, absolutely
42:33There's so much incredible heritage all over the tube network
42:38from the 120 year old glass tiles still clinging to the side of deep subways
42:44to the gritty industrial history of the tunnelling shields left abandoned in the clay
42:50all of it just through a locked door
42:53or the other side of a wall from where thousands of passengers rush by each day
42:58a story.
43:00a story of Trash
43:28You
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