I came to London, England on December 15th 2021 for a brief Christmas visit with family but circumstances have kept me here until late February. I’ve taken advantage of this “holiday” to do a bit of exploring of the City of London and I’d like to share one of the more interesting discoveries that does not typically appear in the guidebooks.
I’m staying in Balham which is in south London and in chatting with my son-in-law discovered that during the Second World War (WWII) the Balham Tube/Railway Station was bombed and 68 people were killed, one of the worst single bombing tragedies in London during the war.
This lead to other local oddities from the war and Neil pointed out a structure in Clapham South that is an entrance way to a Deep Level Air Raid Shelter. This, of course, piqued my curiosity as I knew that both my Mom and Dad had been in London during the Blitz and would have been very pleased to find a deep level shelter. I do know that Mom was a frequent night visitor to one of the tube stations during the Blitz.
An internet search revealed a number of facts about these shelters, specifically that there were eight of them, four located south of the Thames River and four located north of the Thames River. The shelters essentially follow the same route as the Underground Northern Line and had initially been built with a sense that they could be used as part of a future high speed tube line. This didn’t happen. It was also the case that construction began in 1940 but they were not completed until 1942 and by that time the blitz was essentially over. Each one of the shelters was approximately 1,200 feet long and could hold up to 8,000 people. There were two entrance ways, one north and one south and each entrance way also had at least one large ventilation shaft.
The locations south of the Thames are Clapham South, Clapham Common, Clapham North and Stockwell. In a rough line that would cover about three kilometers along Clapham Road and provide accommodation for 32,000 people. North of the Thames they were located at Chancery Lane, Goodge Station, Cambden Town and Belsize Park. This group would cover about six kilometers and again provide shelter for 32,000 people.
The Deep Level Shelters (DLS) did come in handy later in the war when the German’s launched their V1 and V2 attacks on the city. Some of them also served after the war as temporary shelters for immigrants, accommodations for the military or as a deep level communications centre (Kingsway Telephone Exchange) during the cold war.
I was very curious about the entrance way structures as it appeared that they could all be seen at street level so I started to do a bit more internet research and aerial searching using Google Earth. From the air these structures have a very distinct shape and I was able to spot the one at Clapham South very easily. Google Earth is a great way to do such reconnaissance. You can spot what looks like a likely subject then go to street view to see if the aerial view matches whats on the ground.
Using this technique I also discovered the southern entrance to the Clapham South shelter. Neil informed me that there is one at Stockwell and it too is quite easy to spot using Google Earth. Not content to find them on a map I wanted to see them up close so I’m soon off up the Northern Line to Clapham South then Stockwell.
The southern entrance way to the Clapham South Deep Level Shelter has been integrated into the lines of the building that has been built over and around it.
A ride up the Northern Line to Stockwell and just outside the tube station is the entrance way located at the Stockwell Memorial Garden. The building itself has been decorated by high school students as a memorial to Britain’s war dead…and apparently James Bond.
The Bronze Statue is also part of the Stockwell Memorial Garden and is the first statue of an African-Caribbean woman in the UK. It celebrates both motherhood and the mother’s ethnic origins. The theme is taken from a poem by Caribbean poet Cécile Nobrega who lived in Stockwell and wrote the poem “The Bronze Woman” about 50 years ago.
This has been most interesting to me but I’ll leave it there for now. You should know however that this adventure has really just begun.
Until next time.