At points, the cables closed in like tentacles as the tunnel narrowed; at others, the arrangement felt oddly domestic, like a socket containing way too many plugs. We paused to inspect fluorescent bugs, discarded equipment, a tiny peephole on to the District Line. Time seemed to slow down and stop. We emerged at around 3am. Dan locked up and turned off the lights. I made my way back through the City, passing stumbling clubbers, feeling disjointed yet elated. I wanted to climb every lamp-post.
Back home, it took me a couple of hours to get to sleep. There are now groups all over the world, notably in Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, New York and Toronto recently, odd explorers met up in Antwerp for a party in its picturesque sewer system. They shared photos on Flickr, and discussed missions on forums such as 28dayslater. He describes to as a Golden Age of exploration. The recession had left insecure structures such as Eagle House all over town; cost-cutting meant security was lax.
The members of the LCC learned how to pick locks and deactivate alarms; they climbed a lot more, too. On the ideal explore, no one would know they had been there — they enter at their own risk, scornful at the idea of suing anyone should they get injured, and they leave everything as they found it. According to Garrett, they help security guards, by discovering and blogging about the flaws in their systems. Only one explorer made it; his account is on guerrilla exploring.
The risks were high Despite the evident risks of electrocution, death by falling, or losing limbs to Underground trains, urban explorers consider skiing and rock climbing to be more dangerous. Perhaps even if it were on private land, too; the right to roam is protected by laws.
London itself is a factor, too; with its CCTV cameras, Olympics security boom and ASBOs, it is the hardest city in the world to crack, but its medieval heart, Victorian infrastructure and modern glass towers offer unparalleled riches.
The station itself is absolutely beautiful. It has aspects of historical significance that really ping. If he takes an academic approach to exploration his thesis is full of references to the situationist theorist Guy Debord , for Salisbury it is educational.
His knowledge of civil engineering is extensive; his admiration for Sir Joseph Bazalgette knows few bounds. A suite of secure briefing rooms under Whitehall, used in times of national crisis by various government departments. The Cold War was an ongoing state of political unrest which lasted from to between the Communist World, mainly the Soviet Union and the Western world.
Dark Places is a trusted and active forum and research portal relating to urban and underground exploration. Freestone is a stone is a fine grained, uniform stone which is soft enough to be cut without shattering or splitting.
The Quarrymans' Arms is a pub which sits above Box Quarry and pays tribute to the local quarry history. Ralph Allen was an important name in Bath's history as one of the pioneers of the stone trade. A book by Wiltshire based historian, Nick McCamley which looks in details at the history of hundreds of secret bunkers built across the UK as the threat of war loomed over the county.
A slope shaft is a quarry entrance, dug in to the ground at an incline. It only had three surface entrances and contained a bar for workers on their off-hours, rumoured to be the deepest in the UK at 60m below the street. Although the government employed a host of people to maintain the tunnels, Kingsway was a spatial secret of state - part a trio of the most secure and sensitive telephone exchanges in Britain, along with the Anchor Exchange in Birmingham and the Guardian Exchange in Manchester.
The conversion of the air-raid shelter into the Kingsway Telephone Exchange was undertaken secretly by the government. In the tunnels suddenly vanished from the map, as did a big chunk of taxpayer money used to retrofit them. Campbell writes:. Either the public would think that the government were out to protect their own skins and those of their immediate servants; or the public would assume that the shelters were intended for public use in time of war and would be disappointed when they found they were not.
Word of these tunnels systematically disappeared from the public eye. Then, incredibly, in the ever-tenacious Campbell — equipped with a bicycle and a camera - gained access to them and explored the entirety of the system. He published his explorations, including photos, in the New Statesman. After climbing 60m down a set of alternating ladders in a long, vertical metal cage, we emerged into a set of tunnels that smelled reassuringly neglected.
Like a post-apocalyptic game show, we suddenly had to make a choice between three tunnel entrances to the left, right and straight ahead. Once we had circled back, we were sure we were alone and had the run of the tunnels all night. We found the bar, the switchboard, medical facilities, power control panels and more. Two things really struck me while we were in there. First, the electricity was on wherever we went. Second, the tunnels, in the middle of winter, were a cosy hoodie temperature.
It made me think about how all this space was being wasted, space that was built with taxpayer money. Battles over space are nothing new in London of course: from private Georgian squares in the 18th century to the South Bank Undercroft in the 21st, urban space is a continually contested place.
But these days we seem less inclined to stand up to spatial inequality or obstructive behaviour over the release of information. There is, perhaps, a sense that the battle is lost; that it is not worth fighting any more in a climate where we are all being monitored.
New surveillance technologies or increasing corporate control of space are not the most worrying developments of our time, however — the biggest concern is growing apathy.
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