'Secret Underground London' is a comprehensive photographic record of a hidden world which lies beneath the capital but which is not generally seen by the public.
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; and similarly the more modest Royal Observer Corps posts. 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.
This large-format volume contains approximately 400 archive and colour photographs, accompanied by comprehensive captions and an authoritative text.
Nick Catford was granted unprecedented access to many of the sites in order to compile the collection of images reproduced in this book.