Site Records

Site Name: Down Street Station

Down Street
London W1
OS Grid Ref: TQ28618003

Sub Brit site visit August 1995, 19th October 2001 & March 2009

After conversion access was by train, travelling in the driver’s cab and alighting at small platforms in either direction, just as at Brompton Road. Signals were installed to allow personnel leaving the station to halt a train there. Entry was also available via the doorway in the old station entrance at 24 Down Street, although for some visitors this might have created security problems, incurring the risk of recognition. This entrance had a permanent guard of two uniformed police officers.

Visitors arriving at the REC Headquarters by train had to travel in the drivers cab and negotiate a very short length of platform. The signal seen on the wall would stop the next train for anyone leaving

After the war this hive of activity ended and Down Street remained largely forgotten until the 1990's although it was retained as a point of emergency egress and new lighting was installed along with signs in one of the cross passages indicating left for eastbound trains and right for westbound trains to help maintenance staff orient themselves on arrival. In the 1990's regular tours of Down Street were organised by the London Transport Museum and it soon became a top attraction with a long waiting list for visits. Demand far outstripped the available tours and they were

Part of the 2004 British horror film Creep was set in the Down Street tube station, although the scenes were actually shot at the disused Aldwych tube station and on studio sets. The TV series and novel Neverwhere are mostly set in a medieval-fantasy world with locations named after tube stations such as Blackfriars and Knightsbridge; the finale is located in an area known as Down Street, and one scene of the TV series was filmed on the remaining open section of platform at Down Street, with trains passing by in the background.

In Billy Connolly's 'World Tour Of England, Ireland And Scotland', Billy takes a tour of Down Street station, explaining the heritage and showcasing the various rooms Winston Churchill and his war cabinet once occupied.

SITE VISIT ON 19th OCTOBER 2001 BY SUB BRIT MEMBER HWYEL WILLIAMS
We walked down a small narrow flight of steps arriving at the top of the original spiral staircase, complete with its maroon and cream tiles so typical of other stations built during the early 1900s.

There were 103 steps in total (23 for the narrow straight staircase and 80 in the spiral shaft, with the shaft itself being 22.2 metres in height). Even at this point, there is evidence of use during WW2. Above is a reinforced concrete and steel cap to prevent bomb penetration down the emergency stair shaft. Behind a door at this level, an emergency generator would have been housed which could provide power for the whole complex below should the mains be cut. The room is now empty, apart from a single tank mounted near the roof. The floor is damp and the room smelt quite musty. Looking down the centre of the spiral staircase, a space can be seen which had originally been occupied by a small two person lift which was installed to make access easier during the war. The lift itself along with its machinery has long gone but the door still remains along with the remains of the button to call the lift.

The new spiral staircase installed at Down Street as it is a designated emergency exits for the Piccadilly Line. Photo by Hywel Williams.

We walked down what is a new aluminium spiral staircase that has replaced the old crumbling emergency stairs comparatively recently. Marks on the wall where the old stairs had been flush with the tiled walls could be seen since the new stair way left a small gap between itself and the wall. The new stairs were installed because Down Street is one of the designated as an

We stopped about two thirds of the way down at a doorway to see a passageway that is unique in an underground station. Through the door is an alternative emergency exit down to the subways below. During WW2, this corridor had been equipped with bathroom and toilet facilities and signs on the wall indicated that this was also an alternative route to the offices below to enable part of the complex to be closed off for privacy.

A wall has been built down the tunnel forming a narrow corridor with doorways to our left opening into several small rooms. The first doorway revealed the toilets, two cubicles containing two porcelain base units, but the water cisterns have long since been removed as has much of the plumbing. The next two doors revealed two bathrooms with baths still in place, one room still has its

At the bottom of the spiral staircase, the first impression I had of the tunnelling down here was a strange feeling of scale. The passenger subways had been tiled using cream and purple tiling (now very much coated in dust) and are of a larger diameter than similar subways at other stations. It was soon explained that when the station was being built, the railway company was running out of resources and had none of the metal tunnel linings that were usually used to line subways. They did however have an excess of standard rail tunnel sized linings so these were used instead giving an unexpected illusion of scale. The subway we were now standing in would originally have served as the station's ‘exit’; there is also a parallel ‘entrance’ tunnel from the lifts which we were to see later on.

Photo by Andrew Smith

Along the walls of these subways several painted signs can be clearly seen, one of which reads 'Enquiries & Committee Room', a reference to the committee room used during the war. There is also additional evidence of war use here with a slightly raised floor area with a narrow section to our left sectioned off by a hand rail. The raised area was originally walled to provide a separate room which was used as a typing pool for the officers and civil servants that used the complex during its days of active service.  We walked around a corner whether there had been a number of other rooms, including a long room for the REC committee and

To our left was a door to the alternative emergency exit passage. The stairs have a breeze block partition down the middle creating a number of further rooms; the lowest room has a small fan mounted on a concrete plinth. There are two further toilet cubicles at the bottom of the stairs.

After walking a bit further we came to another corner to the right and a short staircase which led down to what originally would have been the platforms. We were now standing at a ‘T’ junction which was one of the five cross passages between the two platforms. The platforms themselves have been removed and the platform area walled off from the running tracks to

For further information and pictures of Down Street station click here

Home Page