Secret Underground London

Description

Another fantastic, full-colour, lavishly illustrated and highly informative large-format book from the Folly Books stable. This large-format volume contains approximately 400 archive and colour photographs, maps & plans, accompanied by comprehensive captions and an authoritative text. Included in this book is a miscellany of sites, from the disused tube stations and closed sections of the London underground railway system, many of which were given some other lease of life, to the secret central government and military bunkers - operations rooms and control centres - which protected London against the German bombers during the Second World War. The book also tells the story of London's Cold War bunkers, never used in anger. There are air raid shelters, large and small, public and private; mines and underground quarries, some going back to the 17th century, and tunnels of all sorts: pipe tunnels, horse tunnels, tram tunnels, service tunnels, and the tunnel under the Thames Barrier. Last but not least, and not for the fainthearted, is a collection of photographs showing the capital's creepy Victorian cemetery catacombs. FROM THE FRONT FLAP: Inevitably, deciding upon a title was one of the most difficult tasks that faced the combined wit and intellect of the author, editor and publisher. Underground London  was an obvious choice, but the inclusion of the prefix Secret  was a more difficult decision. The question was asked: Just how much of what is described in this book is actually secret, and, anyway, what do we really mean by secret?  The answer is that many of the government-controlled underground bunkers (and there are very many of them) are, or at least until very recently were, secret in the most sinister way, for they were subject to the Official Secrets Act and to photograph them, or even to write or talk about them too authoritatively could result in sanctions of considerable severity.