Site Records

Site Name: King William Street Station

King William Street
London
EC4
TQ329808

A NEW ROLE IN WW II
Transport and communications enthusiast Alan Gildersleve states: "I slept many times in the former King William Street station under Regis House, where my father worked. I was there the night the bomb fell on the Bank station and the tunnel really rocked. The King William Street station was used as offices by the United Dominions Trust and I was intrigued by the PAX extension number 00. Obviously the last remaining spare line circuit in a 100 line PAX! The two running tunnels at the end were toilets apparently running all the way to Borough. One male and one female. The air conditioner made such a noise that when it switched off at about 5 a.m. the sudden silence woke you up! That part that I slept in was north of the Thames, and the only access of which I have any knowledge was from the basement of Regis House (corner of Monument Street) via the standard spiral tube station staircase. This comes out into a double track sized tube tunnel which was much larger in diameter than a normal tube station and then a large office and full of desks and filing cabinets, between which we used to put up camp beds.

It was obviously right next to the running tunnel as we were aroused each morning by the trains starting to run apparently just the other side of the wall! I visualised the new tunnel as running parallel with the old one but apparently, from your map, this was not so. As I said, the two normal sized tunnels ran on from the end of this large one and they were closed off with doors, one marked 'Ladies' and the other marked 'Gents'. Presumably they continued on to join up with the under-river bit. It's a good job that no bomb fell in the river bed! I used to spend the evening with my Father in a store room in the basement, listening to some one else's gramophone up the passage playing The Breeze and I, If I should fall in love again and particularly A little dash of Dublin. I now have copies of these records (on 78) and they really bring back memories. About 10 p.m. we would make a cup of tea, eat a sandwich and go down to the tube station for the night along with several other employees most of whom belonged to the United Dominions Trust. My Father worked for Watts Watts and Co., who ran merchant shipping and whose ships were mostly named after London districts such as Twickenham, Dagenham and even Dulwich. He was a scrutineer keeping an eye on the invoices which were being received and to see that the firm wasn't being swindled!"

Roger Morgan clarifies: "The Northern Line crosses King William Street station at right angles as I remember, close enough to hear the trains evidently. There was a second stair shaft (maybe this was built post-war but that seems unlikely) at the running tunnel end of the station into the basement of an office block on the other side of the road to Regis House, which has now been filled with concrete on its redevelopment. Now (or at least in 1978, when I did) you could pass through the toilets and into the under-river section (through the construction shaft), streaming water and stalactites, and then through a door in a grille into the Southwark shelter. I and Harry Pearman walked from King William Street to Borough."

There is a good photograph of the air raid shelter in the Hulton Archive . Copyright reasons mean we cannot show it here without paying a fee but you can see it yourself by logging onto the site and searching for image no. JD6505. The photo was taken on 22nd May 1940 and the caption is 'Workmen putting the finishing touches to the bomb shelter on the site of the King William Street tube station'.

SUBSEQUENT EVENTS
When rebuilt in the early 1930s, Regis House retained the same quarter-round profile as the older structure. Occasional visits to the old station in the basement were permitted and photographic records of two such explorations can be found on the WWW (see end of article for links).

A press visit was arranged in 1992 for Railway World magazine (April 1992 issue, pp 44-45), in which the late Handel Kardas says inter alia: "The station, was adapted as [an] air raid shelter in the war years, losing its character in the process. The large single-arch lost its platforms and trackbed and the space was filled with two stories of rooms. These are still there, falling into decay, but the original structure seems as good as ever. Unfortunately they make the old station practically impossible to photograph. Access to the station for maintenance and inspection purposes by London Underground Ltd engineers, is through the office block. In a fashion reminiscent of the opening sequence of The Man From Uncle or similar lightweight 1V spy series, staff enter the building at ground floor level and descend two floors. From there they take a short staircase further down still, to an innocuous-looking locked door. This gives access to another world of old, musty tunnels and twisting stairways, which show that this pioneer station was remarkably like many later ones in general design. Much of it was originally tiled and the L T Museum has had several sections of tiles professionally salvaged for preservation. Soon, redevelopment will start and this remarkable survival of the first ever tube line will be lost forever."

A letter from M.E. Mawson of Edenbridge in the following issue took a more positive line, stating: "I do not understand how the old King William Street terminus may disappear with the forthcoming redevelopment, because it is not underneath Regis House but crosswise to King William Street and ending below the side street towards the monument. The spiral steps are beneath the pavement therein, while the lift was indeed in the building confines and filled in solid when the present block went up. Surely London Underground Ltd will retain access via the basement of any succeeding premises."

ESSENTIAL READING
Bancroft, Peter: The Railway to King William Street and Southwark Deep Tunnel Air-Raid Shelter. Self-published, 1981. [The definitive work, now out of print, but available via inter-library loan services or try looking for a secondhand copy with Addall - used asnd second hand book search]

FURTHER RESOURCES ON THE WWW
Frederic Delaitre's Lost Subways web site. The most detailed study, nicely researched and illustrated.

Pendar Sillwood's Abandoned Tube Stations web site. Superb photographic survey of the tunnels as they were between 1977 and 1981.

Nick Leverton's web site. Excellent photographic record of a visit to the tunnels plus some good links to the history of the City & South London Railway.

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