Today i'm feeling nostalgic, so we're going to revisit an old subject. The very first video I
ever did on the underground was on the subject of the deep level air raid shelters hiding in plain
sight on the london underground. Don't bother watching it, it's not very good.
But today, I thought I'd take a closer look at one of those shelters and the station it's attached
to. We're going back to Clapham South. So Clapham South station was opened on the 13th of September
1926. Today, it's on the Northern line, but back then it was part of the City and South
London Railway. Until 1926, the line that i'm going to call the Northern line for convenience
only went as far south as Clapham Common. In 1913, the City and South London Railway had
been bought out by Underground Electric Railways of London. UERL was nicknamed
"the Combine," and was fiercely acquisitive. They already owned another line called the
Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway, and once they had the City and South London,
they got to work on combining the two into a single line. At the same time, they upgraded
the City and South London, which had been overtaken by technology. With this work underway,
they could contemplate expansion. UERL was backed by American money provided by the ruthless Chicago
businessman Charles Yerkes. American money came with American know-how on how to provide rapid,
efficient transport. It also came with an American approach to building railways. In Britain, the
normal way was to build a railway from somewhere to somewhere Yerkes wanted lines from the city
to the middle of nowhere. His argument was that the presence of a good public transport link
would drive development and create new suburbs - and he was right. The Charing Cross, Euston
and Hampstead Railway originally terminated at Golders Green, which at the time was all fields,
and now looks like this. Yerkes himself was long gone by the time the Combine acquired the City and
South London, but the policy remained in place. This time, they wanted to extend south into the
then largely rural district of Morden. Clapham South was the first station on this extension.
One of the most important things to note about Clapham South is its architecture. Normally,
when a station was built in a rural area, it was designed to blend in with its surroundings.
You can see this elsewhere on the Underground. Charles Holden was the architect commissioned
to design the stations on the Morden extension, and he was having none of that. The stations on
the Morden extension were big, airy and faced in Portland stone, a material that Holden explicitly
associated with the City of London. The word "iconic" is overused, especially when it comes to
buildings, but that is what Holden was going for: stations that would stand out and act as a focal
point for the new suburbs growing up around them. Each one would be built to fit the requirements
of their site, but all would have features in common. Clapham South was, as I said, the first
station built on this extension, and so it was built with a number of experimental features that
weren't used elsewhere. Holden collaborated with Harold Stabler on the interior design.
Stabler designed ceramic tiles which would be both decorative and hard-wearing. He originally
intended a much fancier look, inspired by Indian, Chinese and Iberian design. This didn't go ahead,
sadly. The tops of the columns here are relics of that fancier look. There's quite a bit of wrought
iron, more elaborate than you get elsewhere on this extension. Uplighters are a common feature
on the escalators of the Underground, but at Clapham South, the ceiling of the escalator was
originally stepped. It was thought that this might provide better illumination, but this was found
not to be so. Later stations would use a sloping ceiling and Clapham South's escalator passage was
rebuilt not long after opening. Clapham Common and Clapham North both have island platforms. Not
so at Clapham South. The platforms are built in separate tunnels to allow greater capacity,
which the company were confident they would need. It's not really relevant to the architecture,
but in the early days, the station might have been called Balham North or Nightingale Lane. In fact,
roundels bearing the name Nightingale Lane were installed, and when UERL changed their minds,
Clapham South plates were fixed over the top. The Morden extension was a success. In many ways, it
was a victim of its own success. Within a couple of decades, it was massively overcrowded, as was
the whole line into Central London. In 1933, the line became part of London Transport, and they
had plans to extend the Northern line further into the northern suburbs, so it was clear that
the problem would only get worse if action wasn't taken. The idea they favoured was a new Tube line
running under or around the existing one. In the late 1930s, the government were more worried about
international developments. It seemed very likely that the world was once again heading for war,
and the question was asked of what should be done about sheltering the populace against air
raids - not least by the populace themselves. In 1940, the Blitz began: an intensive campaign of
German air raids. The need for shelter became extremely acute. The idea of sheltering on the
Underground was nothing new. People had taken refuge there during the First World War and they
would do the same during the Second, despite initial official attempts to discourage this.
So when the need arose for new air raid shelters, the Underground was an obvious starting point.
Many stations had been built with lifts that had been replaced with escalators, so the original
idea was to use the disused shafts as a starting point and build outwards from there at the bottom.
But this was dismissed as impractical, so the government revisited London Transport's request
for new Tube lines. A scheme was devised. London Transport were to build deep level shelters along
the Northern and Central lines, because who knew better about digging tunnels? Then, at
some unspecified point in the future, these could be connected up to form the new lines. The sites
selected were Belsize Park, Camden Town, Goodge Street, Oval, Stockwell, Clapham North, Clapham
Common and Clapham South on the northern line and Chancery Lane, St Paul's and a point halfway
between Liverpool Street and Bethnal Green on the Central line. Oval and Liverpool Street/Bethnal
Green were abandoned early on due to labour shortages, and the cathedral authorities objected
to St Paul's, so that got pulled as well. In 1940, construction began, and in 1942, they were
completed. The surface buildings are very basic, as you would expect under the circumstances.
In 1940, Balham had been bombed and flooded, resulting in at least 66 deaths, so these
buildings were intended to provide some shielding in the event of a hit. However, by this time, the
most intensive period of bombing was over, so they weren't used for their intended purpose at first.
Some were used for official purposes - soldiers were accommodated at Camden Town, Chancery Lane,
Clapham Common, Stockwell and our friend Clapham South. Firefighters were housed at Clapham North.
Goodge Street became General Eisenhower's London headquarters. In 1944, they were finally opened
to the public. They were very well equipped as shelters go, featuring sanitation facilities,
canteens, dormitories and medical posts. Each one had a committee to administer things and
keep the peace, and there was a PA system that could play announcements and music. The shelters
were divided into named sections that were themed after famous British people. Those at
Clapham South were named after naval heroes. At Belsize Park, explorers. Camden Town, generals.
Chancery Lane, political leaders. Clapham Common, engineers. Clapham North, writers. Stockwell,
architects. And Goodge Street, scientists. As we now know, 1944 was relatively late in the war.
Despite the introduction of the fearsome V-weapons that brought new terror to air raids,
the shelters didn't see the kind of use that their builders expected.
Belsize Park, Clapham North and Goodge Street were actually closed due to low demand.
The rest went, of course, in 1945. There's some debate as to what was actually supposed to happen
vis-à-vis the conversion of the shelters into stations, and I've read conflicting accounts. One
book I consulted for this suggested that the shelter locations couldn't be used as stations
because the tunnels are too narrow. I read another article, and I'm afraid I can't remember exactly,
where it says that no, these definitely were the locations. I am absolutely capable of making
mistakes, so take all of this with a pinch of salt. What I will point out is that there is
access from the platforms at Clapham South to the deep shelter, which may back the latter theory up.
What I do know is that while the war was raging, the plan was being worked on. A think tank
known as the Railway (London Plan) Committee was considering new railway and Underground lines for
London, and they published their report in 1946. Congestion on the Northern line was considered a
pressing issue. he northern part was kind of in flux. They decided they didn't want to duplicate
the Northern line there, but in the south they wanted to do just that with a line from Kennington
to Tooting Broadway. This didn't get built, because there was no money to build it with.
The deep shelter at Clapham South never became a station, but it did find other uses. In 1948,
the Empire Windrush brought a wave of immigrants from the West Indies looking to start a new life
in Britain, viewed as the "Mother Country" at the time. There were labour shortages, particularly
in the new National Health Service, on the new British Railways and on London Transport.
200 of the immigrants were temporarily housed in Clapham South. Employment offices were set
up in the shelter, but there was also a labour exchange in nearby Brixton.
As a result, many of the new arrivals settled in Brixton. 1951 brought the Festival of Britain, a
massive celebration of Britain designed to improve morale in the depressed post-war years. Of course,
this brought a massive influx of people to make it all happen, and many of them were also housed
at Clapham South. And after that, well, it became archives. Which is something of an anti-climax,
but the story has a happy ending. When flats were built on top of the entrance, it was no longer
possible for vans and lorries to access it. The shelter was Grade II listed because despite now
being useless, it was very well preserved. It has since undergone some restoration and now can be
toured as part of the Hidden London programme. I recommend it if you don't mind stairs.
I hope you enjoyed this well-armoured Tale from the Tube if you did, please do leave a like and
consider subscribing for more. As I said at the beginning, this is something of a remake.
I don't normally do that, but since making the original, I've got more footage and I've
learned a lot more, so much so that I thought a new video was justified. I don't want to remake
all my videos, because I think that would be very boring for long-time subscribers, so it's
something I'd only want to do if there really is enough to make it worth your while. Let me know
your thoughts on that in the comments section. I'd also be interested to know your thoughts on
the speculative Tube line, because I just find that kind of thing really fascinating. Anyway,
I would like to thank my supporters on Ko-Fi and Patreon for their generous donations, you are
the concrete to my shelter. And I'll see you all again very soon for another Tale from the Tube.