Underworld

106 years ago yesterday, a new London Underground station opened in the West End. It's purpose was to give the middle classes easy access to the heart of London's theatreland. It was initially called Strand, but was renamed Aldwych in 1915.

Sadly, the station was a failure. Built at the end of a one stop spur on the Piccadilly line, the number of passengers was lower than expected and when several leading theatres in the area shut down, Aldwych became a white elephant. Surprisingly, it wasn't closed until 1994.

Today, the London Transport Museum offers a limited number of guided tours of Aldwych station. The demand for tickets is high and the tours are usually sold out within hours. Luckily, I'd found out in time after making a brief foray into the Twitterverse and booked a ticket for yesterday afternoon.

The train from Lewes was packed. At first it looked as if it was standing room only, but then I noticed that someone had done the old coat and bag trick on the seat next to them, so I took great delight in making them move their things. One point to me.

As the train pulled out of Lewes and entered a tunnel, I got my book out. I wanted to find out what Alice Vavasor had written in a letter to her cousin Kate. Then it started: pchhh, pchhh, pfffff pfffff, pchhh pchhh, pfffff pfffff... My seat-hogging companion's earphones were just loud enough to distract me from reading, but not noisy enough to warrant a complaint. One point to them.

I got my smartphone out and decided to watch a video. After scrolling through the list, I settled on an episode of 'The World at War', which I've been watching over the last couple of months. The credits began and the episode title appeared: Japan.

I spent the next 50 minutes watching footage of Pearl Harbour, 'Zero' fighters, Japanese people performing Nazi-style acrobatics, Tokyo being bombed and the bloody capture of Iwo Jima. It was fascinating stuff, but for some reason my companion seemed to be increasingly agitated. I wondered why. It wasn't as if he could hear the explosions through my headphones.

As the train drew into Victoria, my companion frantically gathered his stuff together, as if he couldn't wait to get off the train. I was busy watching footage of Kamikaze pilots, but turned off my phone and got ready to leave. I turned round and looked at my companion's face for the first time. He was Japanese.

I wondered how interesting a station that had only been closed 20 years ago would be, but hadn't realised that the veneer of modernity had been stripped away and what remained was a series of fascinating time capsules:

 The lifts are now out of service, so visitors have to be prepared to use a 160-step staircase:

This platform has been used in many well-known movies and television series and if you pay enough money, London Transport will even arrange for a train to appear.

This is what's left of the 1907 tiles that bear the station's original name: Strand.

During the Blitz, Aldwych station was a popular destination for Londoners who wanted to escape from the bombing. As the station was at the end of a branch line, families could camp on the platform for the night without disrupting any passengers.

George Formby and other celebrities of the day used to perform concerts on this platform, some of which were relayed to the neutral USA as part of a propaganda effort.

It's a pity that these original titles haven't been looked after properly in the past, but they must have seemed so commonplace, nobody could see their value.

These early 1970s posters were very familiar to me, from the days when a trip "up to London" was the greatest of treats. My parents regarded the city as a den of vice, populated by hippies and other ne'er-do-wells.

We only lived a dozen miles from Hyde Park Corner, but it might as well have been a hundred.

The poster below was one of many that appeared before Britain joined the European Economic Community, as it used to be known.

Above and below are photos of a platform that has been protected by a Grade I listing. Apparently it has some very unusual insulators, for people who like that sort of thing.

The police regularly train sniffer dogs at Aldwych station. Our guide told us that for some unknown reason, the dogs refuse to enter this tunnel.

The tunnel complex is a little spooky, but the best parts are those that haven't been lit:

A couple of friends had joined me for the tour. They were both as impressed as I was, but one was disappointed by the absence of any maruading aliens. For British people of a certain age, the London Underground is synonymous with this:

I must admit, I was also disappointed by the absence of rats, zombies, cybermen, yeti, third generation cannibals or SIS employees.

However, the guided tour was excellent, striking the right balance between being informative and giving visitors time to look around and take photos. I'd happily go again. If I do, I'll bring a proper camera instead of relying on my phone.

Apparently, Aldwych is one of 26 disused tube stations. I hope that London Transport are able to make a few others accessible for visitors, without actually turning them into proper tourist attractions.

Indeed, one of the best aspects of the tour was the absence of tourists. I'd just spent half an hour trying to dodge my way past hordes of people aimlessly dragging suitcases on wheels. The Aldwych tour filtered out the box-ticking "10 Things You Must Do" brigade.

As you can see, quota of white, balding middle-aged men was predictably high, but there were also a couple of beanie hat-wearing 'urban explorers' and someone who was particularly interested in some of the Art Noveau features.

After the tour, we went for a drink in the Strand, followed by superb curry in the India Club. I left London agreeing with Dr. Johnson, but also felt grateful that ten minutes away from my front door, I have this: