Deep in the Bush

Wednesday 22nd February 2023

I had a personal tour of Shepherd’s Bush Underground station today.

 

 

 

I wasn’t expecting it to be a personal tour but I’d managed to book the 14:35 Hidden London Shepherd’s Bush tour and no one else had. So it was just me, the Hidden London guide, and the safety man that set off down to the platforms and then through locked doors to the parts of the station you don’t get to see as a passenger.

 

These include disused passenger tunnels from the several extensions and reconfigurations of the station, tunnels dug for ventilation, and former lift shafts whose function has been replaced by escalators.

 

 

 

 As with the other Hidden London station tours I’ve been on it’s all atmospheric and grubby but underneath the dirt and later added behind-the-scenes infrastructure there’s a lot of original Central London Railway features.

 

 

 

 Including these built in tiled poster cases at the end of one of the disused passenger tunnels.

 

 

 

Not having another 15 guests on the tour meant this time I could get pictures without other people in them for a change. My guide whose name rather embarrassingly has escaped my mind was keen and knowledgeable so I got the full show and as there was only two of us we were able to go into spaces where a full tour group would be unmanageable.

 

One of the other fun things about these tours is that you get to look out on the platforms from hidden spaces, to the amusement of the two young ladies who looked across the track to see two people waving and grinning from behind a ventilation grille.

 

 

 

 More photos in this Flickr Album

 

I can recommend this Hidden London tour, although I can’t guarantee that you’ll get the personalised version :-)