Cattleya epigenetically Kissin embassy
[Music]
look under London's busy streets and
you'll find more than just dirt you'll
find another city you would have no idea
coming in off the street that there's
this labyrinth here there it's amazing
from forgotten underground rivers so is
this one of the Lost rivers to an
ancient Roman town place and this is
clearly a Roman ruin two millennia of
London's turbulent past
closer than you think this is a bit of
secret hidden lovely baby coming down
lost bunkers ancient churches and secret
burial crypts are all hidden underground
every way you walk you're walking on a
barrier and even London's most famous
leader Winston Churchill had a top
secret subterranean lair so right over
here Churchill is sitting with all his
war ministers thinking how we're gonna
defend our country against the Nazis the
free world we're peeling back the layers
of time to reveal
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for 2,000 years this has been one of the
most important cities in the world
it's endured plagues devastating fires
civil war and vicious bombing raids and
the evidence of it all is still here
buried underground
I'm Eric Geller I'm in London England
Europe's largest city and home to some
of the world's most famous landmarks
every year more than 27 million people
flock here to catch a glimpse of history
but what about the history they can't
see most Londoners would be astonished
to learn that direct links to their past
lie right beneath their feet hidden
bunkers below suburban neighborhoods
secret crypts and traces of lost rivers
exist as little as 15 feet below the
surface
London's secrets are plentiful and
they're about to be revealed
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what most people don't know is that
while London was growing up above the
underground was expanding as well
there's an entire world buried beneath
the streets dating back to the
beginnings of this city and we're gonna
find it
London's tube was the world's first
underground railway and today it's still
going strong every day three million
people rely on its tunnels for transport
but it wasn't that long ago when
Londoners relied on these same tunnels
to save their lives
by 1940 Nazi Germany and in taxes armies
had rolled through much of Europe the
United States and Russia have yet to
enter the war and Hitler knew that
Britain alone stood in the way of his
domination of the continent the Battle
of Britain had begun and London was the
target in September of 1940 fierce
bombing raids began over London refusing
to evacuate resolute Londoners sought
protection in the cellars underpasses
and tunnels of the underground but these
makeshift bunkers and London subways
were not enough in order to protect its
eight million residents the city needed
to build bigger and strong bunkers
thousands of shelters were built
throughout London but eight of them were
more fortified and hidden than the rest
they were called the deep level bunkers
and there was one man who could show me
down
Eric how do you think great his name is
Andrew Smith he's been exploring
London's underground for over twenty
years and knows all of its secrets and
while this inconspicuous door in the
middle of this nondescript parking lot
doesn't look like much it was actually
the entrance into a parallel world
dating back to World War two so this is
the original bomb-proof
surface building but to get down for the
shelter we've got to go down 135 feet
look at this old left hand
this is an original 1940s lift
and down we go
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and here we are 135 feet on the London
unlike most bunkers in London this one
wasn't left abandoned beneath the
streets a lot of boxes here storage bins
what's this for yeah 300 thousand
different boxes and storage bins down
here all storing corporate documentation
for companies who don't want to store
all their stuff in their expensive
office is up on the surface but these
aren't just ordinary inexpensive storage
shelves they were originally built as
bunk beds all the people slept here and
we can see the remains of the bunks are
still here
now use the shelves fool the storage
facilities yeah you see the springs
right here that probably would have been
a little mattress above this even though
there were nearly 3,000 feet of tunnels
with 8,000 Londoners crammed in sleeping
arrangements were incredibly tight but
you can see how narrow these bunks are I
remember this is a stack of three people
here somebody on the floor somebody the
first level and the third person on here
incredibly hot incredibly crowded
probably very uncomfortable but
exceedingly safe it was so safe that
this deep level bunker alone is credited
with saving thousands of lives during
the intense bombing raids of the 1940s
it's an absolutely huge Complex here and
I can now show you just how big this is
because here we are in the main section
this is huge
this is massive look how great this is
isn't it snakes off in every direction
135 feet above us we've got Camden
Market all the hustle and bustle there
this is a totally different world you
would have no idea coming in off the
street then there's this labyrinth here
it's amazing goes every direction it's
1,400 foot from one end of the tunnel to
the other and remember there's two of
these tunnels as well there's over a
mile of tunnel down here as air-raid
sirens sounded overhead panic Londoners
poured into the deep level shelter but
with so many people rushing in at a
moment's notice how is it that no one
got trampled engineers came up with an
ingenious plan this is the spiral
staircase that leads up from this floor
but nobody gets the other level in this
bunker there was another staircase that
was put in that runs the opposite way
around the lift shaft and here it is so
you have one staircase going one way and
one staircase going the other the
staircase was designed in the shape of
the double helix to ensure that every
level of the shelter had one way in and
one way out
ten deep level shelters just like this
one were planned but only eight were
built and they are eight of the most
amazing engineering marvels of the time
most bunkers were ten to fifty feet
below the ground but the deep level
shelters were at least a hundred feet
below the streets making them
practically bomb-proof
in fact andrew says the only way the
deep level shelters could be destroyed
is if a bomb were dropped down the main
lift shaft that Andrew and I had taken
down here but that would have been
utterly impossible a German bomber
traveling at 200 miles per hour at
10,000 feet would have had to drop the
bombs perfectly vertical to make it
inside the chef a shaft camouflaged by
another bomb-proof surface building the
bomb then would have had to travel 135
feet through the shaft and after all
that it would have had a detonate inside
the shelter it's an impossible scenario
meaning this shelter was truly
bomb-proof tell me how did they built
this place tunneling down here was
carried out 24 hours a day seven days a
week on the alternating ship system but
the actual month was only removed from
the surface under the cover of night
darkness kept the location top-secret
and the design was unique to parallel
tunnels were done each 16 feet in
diameter and nearly 400 feet long and
all of it was buried 100 to 135 feet
beneath the ground so the deep level
bunkers were safe from bombs but what
about the elements and 135 feet below
street level the soil alone was putting
almost 300 million pounds of weight on
the structure they reinforced each
section with massive rings made of steel
and concrete between each ring a thick
layer of hemp was used to waterproof the
joint
the rings were then held together by
2-inch thick steel bolts
so here we can see quite clearly actual
engineering that was put together all
these different still segments bolted
the other were these massive 2 inch
bolts this particular form of
construction was designed to withstand
6,000 pounds of pressure per square inch
I hear some pressure right now yes
that's what you can hear that's actually
the Northern Line subway train and how
far above that is the Northern Line it's
just 15 feet above us with that deep
here and no problem this has never been
compromised before even from the weight
of the Train nope 600 tons of train goes
rattling through at 35 miles an hour and
this doesn't even shudder
but what do you do with such a
well-designed bunker after the war
British engineers had been planning to
transform the now vacant shelters into
London's newest Express subway lines
they see we're now understanding on what
would have been the actual track bed
okay so had this has been convert at the
end of World War two
here the rails and the sleepers has been
sunk into this concrete that we're now
standing on and the changelings been
hassling through here back in probably
40 50 miles an hour and the people
who've been around go on and off the
trains here on the proposed high-speed
train line due to lack of money the
plans to build the express routes were
scrapped
but this time capsule of London's past
is still here and it's closer than you
think walking around London you might
think it'd be easy to find traces up its
Roman history the reality is hardly any
evidence exists above ground as
screw it's Roman Pass was literally
pushed further downward now the good
news for us is that it's all still here
right beneath our feet
the Romans lived here for over 400 years
and their great empire left many clues
behind but digging them up in this busy
metropolis isn't easy I enlisted the
help of Jenny Hall a leading expert on
Roman London Jenny hi Jenny thank you
for meeting with me the City of London
Corporation helps to fund and maintain
this subterranean site and gave Jenny
permission to show it to me
few people know it exists Jenny it
doesn't exactly look like there's Roman
ruins around there well not that you can
see here but would you believe this road
used to be where the Roman ward
this area has their water from their
warehouses their keys
no it does it you're saying in the
second century this would have been the
River Thames it would it be yes almost
two thousand years ago this busy street
was a bustling Riverside Wharf in fact
the river has moved over 100 yards away
from the second century shoreline it all
started in 43 ad when the Romans used
the land along the Thames as a military
storage depot during their invasion of
Britain within a few years the Roman
city of Londinium was born by the
beginning of the second century
Londinium was the capital of the Roman
province of Britannia its strategic
location along the river made it ideal
for train and like the modern city it
attracted people from all over the world
especially to its waters as the city
grew the Romans built many warps along
the riverfront pretty amazing when you
realize they had no modern machinery
using huge Timbers they made the base of
the wharf several yards into the river
behind the timber walls they actually
created land by filling in the empty
space that was once the river with tons
of debris leftover from construction
but creating new land caused other
properties the Mighty River Thames began
to shrink the man-made warps also acted
as dams which began to collect silt and
debris from upstream over time the silt
filled in the shoreline and the river
became smaller and smaller to the size
we see today today most people forget
that this road was once a river or that
Waterfront Roman ruins could be buried
anywhere alongside this street so can I
have a look at these ruins
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just 20 feet below a modern office
building we were standing in the middle
of ancient Rome and this is clearly a
Roman ruins these remains are sort of
close to what was the Roman waterfront
and although we're below ground here the
Roman waterfront was only a matter of
feet away from us but this wasn't just
an old road or wall this was a
sophisticated Roman bathhouse complex
you got an entire Roman Baths down here
yes the bath is in the distance and this
is the house that was attached to it it
could have been that it was some sort of
hotel or in people arriving by boat
getting off the boat needing somewhere
to stay overnight where they could get
clean before traveling on to the rest of
the province by the second century the
Roman Empire was massive spanning three
continents from the Middle East across
North Africa and covering virtually all
of present-day Europe by the fifth
century Roman influence in Britain began
to fade and Londinium became buried
beneath the mountain of urban sprawl
when the Industrial Revolution hit in
the mid 1800s the Roman city disappeared
entirely
except for a few sites like this one
that were actually saved by the
buildings that Barrington
I'll Barb's down below street level
Marley we're about 20 feet below
present-day street level because you
have to imagine that over the centuries
and the Romans built the town nearly
2,000 years ago there's been a solid
buildup of rubbish so it's as
archaeologists when we dig down we get
this sandwich historical layer with the
Romans at the bottom we were at the
bottom of this archeological sandwich
but how was this Roman building saved
when so many were destroyed in the 19th
century this building was originally the
coal exchange builders created a cavity
surrounding and protecting the original
Roman site from the tons of pressure
coming down from the coal exchange up
above later engineers of the
contemporary building followed suit
placing concrete reinforced support
beams around the bathhouse to support
the cavity and preserve this piece of
ancient Rome but there's more incredibly
these remains protected by the modern
building up above contained a
sophisticated central heating system a
testament to the power of Roman
engineering that looks like a furnace
that's what it looked like so how is
this first operated you can't have your
fire burning inside that little tiled
archway so some poor slave would have
been in the open yard here putting wood
into that archway keeping that fire
so we've got the columns of tiles that
would have supported the floor the hot
air would have flowed underneath those
into the various rooms it's ridiculously
sophisticated as that it is the Roman
designs were not only highly
sophisticated but they were also
centuries ahead of their time and
believe it or not some if not most are
still in use today you see there's a
clay books the grooves and it actually
looks very similar to the cement cinders
yes it meant that you could actually so
use the side of that box to actually
faster again that's exactly the same
thing as what we have in the
contemporary building yeah these plaster
blocks are the same as today's cinder
blocks a very common material used in
modern building in fact Rome's influence
can be seen all around the modern city
but few know sites like this still exist
do people have any idea that this exists
down here none of this is rails are a
secret this is a hidden away it's
important that we preserve these remains
because these big office box take out
all the archeology so it's very
important to us that we preserve what's
left most of Roman London has already
disappeared beneath today's city but the
legacy of the ingenious Roman
engineering is still alive today
I'm walking above the Thames River at
215 miles it's one of England's major
waterways years ago it's tributaries
covered all of London but by the 16th
century they methodically disappeared or
did that a river can't just be turned
off like a cat but that's just what city
engineers did
when the Romans founded the city in the
first century there were nearly a dozen
rivers that flowed through open fields
into the Thames today they've all been
banished
but they're not entirely gone if you
know where to look you can still see
signs of these long-lost rivers in fact
the city's famous streets and parks
still bear their names Fleet Street runs
atop of the old fleet River and years
ago the cars driving down Farrington
street would have been boats but
London's rivers didn't dry up many are
still flowing just not with water the
rivers of London were covered up on
purpose but why would a city actually
build on top of the rivers they depend
on for trade and drinking wine and its
height millions of people flocked to
London and that meant two things number
one they needed building space and
number two they needed a massive sewer
system to handle all of the sewage
that's right
the rivers became sewers paving over the
rivers gave Londoners the space and
redirecting the rivers flow helped flush
out the wastes of the growing city it's
been over a hundred and thirty years
since the rivers were completely covered
and today almost no one knows how to
locate them except for a man who spent
his life underground all right I think
this is the place
then nibs Dale is a former flushing or
wastewater operative been by chance good
evening hello you must be area then
worked for Thames Water the city's water
utility for 30 years there's a kick for
you then which I hope is your size and
knows the sewers like his own backyard
he's agreed to take me beneath the
pavement to London's lost rivers turn
sewers where we're going the floor is
like glass so you have to be quite
careful
it's a subterranean world responsible
for taking away the waste of 13 million
people where we're going tonight is a
storm sir when it rains it fills up
quite quickly so you're not expecting a
flash flood but if you got one what
would happen now we'd have to get out
immediately because the water would rise
up quite quickly and we could be washed
away so it is potentially quite
dangerous let's hope there's no rain
flooding wasn't the only danger in the
sewers now this looks like a step
through right here Ben gave me a
protective suit to guard against
infection and a beeping monitor to track
toxic gas levels once we got down there
would be a mix of deadly hydrogen
sulfide and non toxic but highly
flammable methane gas this is styling we
can form a boyband almost good week well
you never get mugged when you're dressed
like this
[Music]
then showed me a map of the city's
subterranean sewers there are nearly a
dozen rivers that have been sewer eyes
essentially paved over and rerouted into
man-made tunnels and these are all
subterranean hidden rivers almost
entirely on the southside of London
several of them are still open for
stretches but in all the Northside ones
are completely enclosed like the one you
see right this way all right we're gonna
go on this wagon here the entrances to
the sewers are kept secret from the
public so we can't show the exact
location okay you're ready but I can
tell you it's right beneath one of
London's most famous upscale stores
coming down nothing to it
now when you step off turn step out into
the middle alright little slick
yep good cool although it's a trickle
now almost 50,000 gallons of sewage flow
through the sewers each day the smell
was unbelievable but this wasn't a
surprise when you think of the millions
of toilets flushing tons of waste down
here every day
but what was surprising was that these
tunnels were once some of London's
busiest waterways there's this actual
river water that we're getting yes it's
a mixture of ground water and sewage so
is this one of the last rivers yes this
is one of the streams that used to be
opened through West London and it was
covered over during the 19th century
two hundred years ago we would have been
standing at the bottom of the Westbourne
river directly above us would have been
London's infamous waterfront
as the city grew in the 17th and 18th
centuries so did its slums full of dens
of sex and drugs
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Bramley gardens in particular was known
as a place of public amusement notorious
for drug dealers and prostitutes and in
the 17th century Ranelagh Gardens is
where you went for sex and drugs and
prostitutes but it's God now
unfortunately while the illegal
activities are gone the garden still
exists approximately 10 feet above and
the river that used to run below it is
now the sewer we were standing in but
exactly how were the river sewers it
happened in a series of phases the first
phase came in the 1700s by then much of
London's rivers were covered to hide
pollution and to free up space for the
crowded city section by section
the rivers began to disappear beneath
the streets the once free-flowing rivers
were transformed into Seward's carrying
waste into the Thames where it travelled
through the heart of the city and
eventually out of seat
but that meant the thames was an open
sewer and with the advent of flushing
toilets the whole city was practically
overflowing with waste creating what was
called the great stink of 1858 but the
smell was the least of the problems
six of the nine water suppliers of the
city drew unfiltered water from the
thames endless outbreaks of Cholera
crippled London something had to be done
a plan was put into place to divert the
sewage flowing through the underground
rivers away from the city by dumping the
waste at a lower point along the Thames
so in 1859 the city launched a new phase
of the sewage overhaul plan it was a
huge an ambitious civil engineering
project engineers dug new tunnels and
deepened those that already existed 1300
miles and tunnels were built alongside
the rivers and 13,000 miles of pipes and
drains were put in three hundred and
eighteen million bricks were laid and
over three and a half million cubic
yards of Earth were excavated but most
importantly they built 100 mile long
sewers that ran along each side of the
River Thames using the cut and cover
method they dug a section of Earth using
pickaxes and shovels covered and secured
the tunnel with a circle of bricks then
moved on to the next section
when these Riverside tunnels were
complete they intercepted the old sewer
steady flow of waste and dropped it off
further downstream these tunnels are
still in use today
this massive sewer project took 16 years
and 22,000 workers to complete
finally London's waste problem was in
check but with thousands of miles of
empty space cave into the tunnels below
now there are massive double-decker
buses that are always going down this
street happen this thing doesn't cave in
well as you can see it's a circular arch
construction as thought up by the Romans
and it's very strong and it's well able
to withstand the waves of heavy traffic
today approximately 40 flushers like
been maintained this same system it's a
dangerous and foul place to spend an
evening most Londoners may never know
about the lost rivers beneath their
neighborhood but believe me they're
lucky this massive engineering miracle
is below ground
Big Ben Buckingham Palace the Tower of
London rumours of subterranean secrets
beneath London's most famous landmarks
are common but there's one location in
London where the rumors are true
Westminster Abbey is the coronation
Church of England and all the kings and
queens of Great Britain since the 13th
century have been crowned in Westminster
is still a practicing Church with daily
masses thousands of people pass through
its doors each day but I was about to
see something they would never see
there's a rumor that something exists
beneath Westminster Abbey
I met with curator Vanessa Simeone
that's right we have a couple of
inspection packages where we can
actually go down and see thousands of
burials so everywhere you walk you're
walking on the barrier so not only was I
walking through one of London's most
recognizable landmarks I was also just a
few feet above a secret burial ground
throughout the Abbey for inspection pins
which allow maintenance crews to
occasionally perform conservation
efforts and they also provide access to
the town's
this is another inspection pit Pizza
it's a bit bigger the abbey above was
800 years old but the 4-foot cavity full
of tombs beneath the floor was even
older dating back to the 11th century
incredibly alongside the tombs were the
foundations of a second ancient church
200 years older than the abbey above
what you're actually seeing down there
eric is the 11th century axe which was
the the curved end of the chapel
looks like somebody put a few metal
supports there are some crossbars to
make sure that this wasn't gonna crumble
down and you can see where the
difference is where this brick ends at
about from here down to my arm a good
three feet or so and this would be the
original masonry of the original
foundation but how did an ancient church
get buried beneath a modern
in 1065 King Edward whose remains are
still buried beneath the main altar
funded the building of a new Minster an
old English word meaning the Church of a
monastery he built his Minster right on
top of the old one the new Church became
known as the Westminster and the ancient
Church beneath it became the foundation
that helps hold up Westminster Abbey
today
Westminster Abbey is made up of nearly
1.4 million cubic feet of limestone so
with a ballpark weight of 200 million
pounds pressing down on its walls it's
amazing how well all of this is
preserved that was quite a trip today
the Abbey is an engineering marvel and
who would have guessed it's right on top
of another church and a burial ground
full of London's most famous residents
but there's more than just royalty
buried in London's underworld and
Westminster Abbey isn't the only Church
where I come so close to the day
London's history goes back more than
2,000 years and nowhere is that more
prominent than st. bride's church one of
London's earliest Roman sites a bomb
leveled the place to the ground during
World War two the following excavations
discovered more than just dirt and
rubble they discovered a lost world
[Music]
st. bride's church dates back to the
first moment the Romans set foot in
London this small church is walls hide a
grisly secret that not many people know
exists and for hundreds of years it's
been right below their feet
Church rector David Mira was about to
give me full access to the off-limit
chambers of this ancient crypt Damon
Eric hey welcome to some bride a church
just stood on this site for about 1,500
years the original church was founded by
sin Brigid some Brides in the 5th
century starting with the Romans in the
2nd century this small church has been
destroyed and rebuilt roughly every 200
years in 1703 famed architect
Christopher Wren designed the 7th
version of the church then in 1940
another great catastrophe struck the
Nazis bombed London
December 1940 during one of the great
fire raids the church took a direct hit
from a far bomb the outer walls and the
towering spire survived but the rest of
it was a complete burnt-out shell st.
pride was completely obliterated and
plans were made to rebuild the church
for the 8th time but this time it was a
different story when they began to clear
away the debris they actually found an
ancient Roman road and a mysterious mass
grave called a charnel-house drop until
world war ii they had no idea that there
was a thousand years of history on this
very site it was a very exciting moment
they discovered the archaeological
remains of the seven previous churches
that takes this site back to the second
century AD to Roman times they found
layers of history and at the bottom a
Roman Road actually laid the foundations
for almost two millennia a building on
top
so talk about your layers of history
right here in the reflection we see the
Roman Road from the the second century
we've got the 12th century wall right
there this is the 11th century wall
right here
yes so it's a great model really of
periods but it just shows that there
have been all these different layers of
occupation and each generation building
on the on the rubble and the remains of
their predecessors but the remnants of
the Romans were just the beginning of
what was beneath st. bride's skeletons
and mass graves were undisturbed for
over 150 years hiding within the walls
of the church's crypts
come with me we're going down two spaces
that were opened up for the first time
for a couple of hundred years in 1953
it's yet another level that the public
is not allowed to see this is perhaps
one of the most interesting hidden
treasures down here they were full of
bones and skulls when they were first
opened up
[Music]
this is a late sixteenth-century
charnel-house this I can describe what
I'm seeing but it's hard to describe
what I feel this is a row of skulls here
and that's a pile of bones
when you look in the soil you can see
layers of bones they may even go down
below what we can see now but why would
thousands of Londoners be buried in such
a small crypt
London was struck by a plague epidemic
in 1665 and later ravaged by cholera
outbreaks during the early 19th century
during both these epidemics corpses were
everywhere and the dead were piled high
in mass graves just like this one plague
broke out again in 1854 Parliament
ordered the end to burials in the city
so the Crypt was sealed and completely
forgotten this arched room when was this
built the brickwork here is again early
sometimes and you see it was entirely
contemporary with the with the bones
hundreds of years thousands of people
are blocked and do they have any idea
that this exists beneath their feet most
people don't know this is this is a bit
of secret hidden London really
what a room just indeed
in less than one square block you'll
find 2,000 years of history buried
underground Roman roads medieval crypts
and eight different churches stacked on
top of one another but most people have
no idea this other world exists we're
not always aware when we walk around the
streets nothing but we're walking on top
of in a sense a whole city that's hidden
in subterranean passages and tunnels but
we depend on all that for our daily
lives and there's some amazing tunnels
and underground places around the wider
parts of London
I've seen a buried Roman city page
lost rivers
and a massive underground bunker
but my last stop in London's underworld
may be its biggest
most already know about Winston
Churchill's legendary cabinet War Rooms
the three acre subterranean building
located beneath the streets of the
Westminster district
the problem was that Hitler also knew
about making the war rooms a perfect
target at the dawn of World War two Sir
Winston Churchill realized the cabinet
War Rooms would not survive a direct hit
he needed a top-secret standby location
the solution a bomb-proof engineering
marvel 40 feet below suburban London its
codename paddock today its location is
still relatively unknown but underground
expeditionary Andrew Smith has access to
one of World War two s best-kept secrets
all right this looks like quite a
fortress here huh it's big isn't it
yeah big gates certainly this isn't what
we're here to see this isn't it this
isn't it no what we're here to see is
this little great door in the wall over
there
right here place looks like a utility
shed you may do but this is Churchill's
secret hideout let's go and get our gear
on okay so a few things we need to be
concerned about here there's lots of
mould growth and things and fungus in
the bunker so please don't touch any of
that and whose biggest risk is fire so
if we have a fire make sure you follow
me all the way up here as quickly as
possible I'll follow him
[Music]
okay let's go down what's your footing
here through the where the blast doors
would have been this top-secret location
was built in 1938 war was imminent and
the original cabinet war room back in
London just ten feet underground would
be devastated by a direct hit from
German bombs another stronger safer
bunker would have to be built so this
top-secret suburban location was chosen
hidden 40 feet beneath the
government-owned research station
British engineers began to carve out
Churchill's top-secret subterranean
world it was from this site that he
would be safe enough to spearhead the
counter-attack to Hitler's blitzkrieg
oh sure these are the blast doors huh
yeah this is what's left of them anyway
we've got something in the region of 50
rooms down here all of which would have
had a different purpose and it was
designed to accommodate something in the
region of 150 to 200 people but come on
nucleus of central government
and just here we've got the main power
room now this is the standby generator
if power had gone off this generator
would have been kicked in controlled by
this panel here which is very rusty and
covered in mold and that would have
provided power for the bunker look at
these things I mean they really look
from the era right you've got your amp
needles right here your volt meters and
this is all a self-contained unit and
this was for the entire bunker which is
a really large structure yeah you could
have run the entire bunker of this
single generator we've got a generator
room we've got a map room we've got
offices for the ministry works and of
course we've got the War Cabinet Room
where Winston Churchill chaired the war
cabinet meeting here in October 1940
this is the most important room in the
bunker moment you walk in here
acoustically it's very different
all the walls were covered in acoustic
paneling sewn over the outside could
actually hear what was being discussed
in here because this is where Churchill
held the meeting of the War Cabinet so
right over here Churchill is sitting
with all his war ministers thinking how
we're gonna defend our our country
against the Nazis the free world yeah do
a little bit of imagination but you
could see the outlines on the ground
that there probably would have been a
table around here right and you can see
how the lights the there's this fan on
the side here that would have
illuminated so they're over the maps
over here right and this would have been
it right here yeah absolutely because
we've had Churchill but had Clements
Hackney the Lord privy seal the three
Joint Chiefs of Staff all sat round this
rectangular table in the middle of the
War Cabinet Room under Dollis Hill and
you have no idea you'd have no idea if
you're walking off the street you saw
this little tiny little pillbox and you
came down here that this was it this was
the seat of the free world this really
is a building of immense historic
importance so the
but this massive structure was also a
feat of British engineering military
engineers designed it to be 120 feet
long and 40 feet wide the structure
itself was 40 feet deep when it was
built
paddock was considered indestructible
and could survive a direct hit from the
biggest bomb the Nazis had a 500 pounder
but how the first line of defense was
the surface building which would absorb
the first round of bombs
17,000 tons of soil and sand lay above
the substructure three and a half foot
thick walls of reinforced concrete
protected from the shockwaves of bombs
the sub-basement was protected by
another six feet of reinforced concrete
beneath that
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to top it off a layer of camouflage
netting was draped over the entire
complex making the outline of the
surface buildings undetectable to Nazi
planes from the air
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it was a real engineering feat in 1939
and it cost nearly a quarter of a
million pounds in those days that's half
a million dollars a phenomenal amounts
of money back in the late 1930s
so panic was an engineering marvel a
subterranean city of its own with
generator rooms ventilation systems and
top-secret war planning leads but this
completely bomb-proof back up government
office building 40 feet underground was
missing one thing so we've seen the
generators we've seen the war rooms
kitchen where's the crapper well that's
very interesting bit of a design fault
there because when the architect
designed the building he designed it
without any toilets no toilet in the
entire place
there is no toilets in the bunk bed the
toilet was actually in the surface
building so in the event of there being
a mustard gas attacked or an air raid or
something the bunker being used in
lockdown mode it was all sealed the
Sanitation for Winston Churchill himself
would have been a fire bucket you're
kidding me
no it was bomb-proof but it wasn't
waterproof and it never had a toilet
the accommodations and pada quirt
luxuries in fact Churchill himself wrote
about his experience in his memoirs
calling it a dismal place but panic
wasn't built for pleasure it was built
for protection and in that it had
succeeded the events that took place in
this derelict world hidden beneath
London's suburban neighborhood altered
the course of the war and like so many
of London's most significant events they
took place underground
since the second century London has been
a central player in the history of the
Western world it began as the capital
city of the Roman province Britannia and
in the wake of an urban assault unlike
any other stood up to the free world's
greatest threat
in 2,000 years we've only just begun to
peel back the layers of London's history
what traces of Roman London still I
hidden under modern high-rises
how many lost rivers are yet
undiscovered as Europe's largest city
continues to grow it's Underground has
nowhere to go but down
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