Clapham Common and Less Common
We've done a number of Hidden London tours, and they're always interesting. We had previously booked the Clapham South tour, but it was cancelled, so we had to reschedule and today's the day.
Claire has already done it, but is not averse to meeting up beforehand for parkrun, so that's the plan.
We take the train to Clapham Junction with our bikes, because the common is a bit of a way away and walking would mean having to get an earlier train. 08:07 is quite early enough for me!
Amanda, Claire and Ros head for the start. Ros is the woman in the red 50 shirt and is a friend of Claire's from Dulwich, although the meeting was a surprise to them both.
Ros is the first of them.
Amanda and Claire are together at this point.
First time past the bandstand, Amanda's ahead a bit.
Not a lot in it, though.
And on the second lap, they're right back together.
And then blimey, what a cheek, Claire pulls ahead at the finish line!
Right, now we have some time before Hidden London starts, so we've found a local gallery to go and be cultured in for a bit. We know nothing about Studio Voltaire except that it appears to have some fabulous toilets, but it's possible the picture on the website represents an artwork rather than a functional space. We shall see...
On the way, we notice this fine domed roof, but it's not obvious what it is.
From the pavement outside you can't see it, so we don't realise when we pass the Alexandra pub that this is it. Google Street View has revealed the truth. It looks like it wasn't always just a pub, because it has a rather ornate doorway with a stone lintel above on which is engraved "Luncheons and Teas".
It's art.
It's a video installation, or what we used to call a film. Lo Ting is half human half fish and the dragon boat has a real dragon, but then it starts to get a bit weird. We're not sure we understand. It's not uninteresting and we are amused for its fifteen minutes or so. Read more here.
It turns out that this is more a studio for working artists than a gallery, so there's not that much else to see.
But.
BUT!
Oh, yes, the loos are something else!
Claire creates her own performance art.
We don't know much about art but we know what we like.
Entrance is free, but obviously they accept donations, and while I'm not sure I'd've given them the suggested fiver for the video, they have more than justified it with the facilities.
So now you know.
They have a small garden outside in which they seem to be breeding caterpillars.
We walk back into the centre of Clapham to find somewhere for a bite of lunch.
Hmm... The Incredible Hulk might have right of way here, but otherwise it's not just the public who are denied.
Lunch is a bit unexciting, and certainly wasn't worth any pictures, but it's not inedible (apart from a somewhat rotten apple). We say goodbye to Claire and jump back on our bikes for the short ride to Clapham South.
Here we are.
And down we go. 175 steps, the man says. There's a lift shaft in the centre but whether it even works we don't know, and it certainly is nowhere near big enough for our group of a dozen or fifteen or so.
The first thing we learn is that this is not a tube station being used as a shelter, these tunnels were built explicitly for the purpose shortly after the Blitz began in 1940 (on my -18th birthday, as it happens). However, the Blitz itself ended before they were ready for use, and it was only towards the end of the war that they were used to shelter from the V1 flying bombs and especially the V2 rockets. Each section here was named after a British naval hero; initially they wanted all admirals, but they also needed an alphabetic sequence and they had to compromise on the ranks in some cases. "Hardy", for example, is presumably Thomas Hardy, Nelson's captain.
Different to any other of the Hidden London tours we've done, this one has an actor portraying an ARP (Air Raid Precautions), later CD (Civil Defence), volunteer. He's showing us a "butterfly bomb". Again, this is new to us. These were small bombs with little 'wings' that could hit the ground without exploding or easily get caught in trees or overhead wires; they would typically have timers and would explode when nobody was expecting it. They wouldn't cause major damage, but contained more than enough explosive to kill people.
Basic medical facilities were provided because with so many people jammed together, infections could spread extremely fast. The service was free, despite the NHS not being created until 1948.
The tunnels are huge! This picture compresses the perspective more than I realised at the time, but the tunnel is 5m wide (or 16' 6" in old money) and something like 100m (yards are close enough) in length, and it's just one of many.
Original bunk fittings (although I'm sure the bed linen is a bit more recent).
Although there was no charge to use the shelters, you would need to get a ticket allocating you a bed.
I happen to also be the beneficiary of one of the ventilation units. The ventilation was so good they were happy for people to smoke! By today's standards, I suspect we would think differently.
Some more original items to set the scene for a CD office.
What's this?
Well, I've looked it up. You can buy it today and one seller describes it as, "German paper glue, resplendent in a glass bottle with built in rubber spreader. Many moons ago we had some vintage stock of these, the new ones are exactly the same and have been for over 70 years." German??? Check it out: www.presentandcorrect.com/products/gummier-stift-glue!
Posters from the time. We are surprised that anybody was worried about getting fat on wartime rations!
A recreation of one of the subterranean cafes. Tea cost 2d a cup (a bit less than 1p in modern currency) which was twice the price on the surface. Anybody who didn't like that was welcome to go back upstairs.
We're not convinced of the realism of the jam tarts.
This staircase leads up to the tube station above. It wasn't officially open to the public but if you had a friendly warden on duty, you could catch your tube train to work without having to go up the stairway, along the road and down again.
The tunnels seem to stretch for miles.
London Transport, as it then was, were given an incentive to dig the tunnels by being told that they could subsequently use them for a proposed express version of the Northern Line which would only stop at a few stations. In the end, that project never happened, otherwise instead of being a place to visit, this might now be a busy railway line.
People lying in bed would write graffiti, such as their address, above their heads behind them; so upside-down from the point of view of somebody standing on the floor.
One of the more modern uses for the tunnels was archive storage, although that's no longer the case because residential development above made it impossible for lorries to load and unload easily.
Oh dear. I do worry that somebody's sense of humour could leak out into the conspiracy theory world and be taken as evidence. OMG! I posted this picture on Facebook! I'm showing conclusive proof that Stanley Kubrick did it in a secret Hollywood studio!
[Actually, I've seen calculations that faking the moon landing TV and photos with the special effects technologies of 1969 would have cost more than doing it for real.]
Well that's the end of our visit. It's back to Clapham Junction and home. But we've got our next two Hidden London's already booked for next year.
Now I shall post this and retire to sit in front of the fire with a glass of wine.
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