Explore the Lost City Beneath London | Cities of the Underworld (S1, E8) | Full Episode | History

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 it's amazing   from forgotten underground rivers  so is this one of the lost rivers   to an ancient roman complex and this is clearly  roman roy two millennia of london's turbulent past   are closer than you think this is a bit of secret  hidden london really coming down lost bunkers   ancient churches and secret burial  crips are all hidden underground   everywhere you walk you're walking on a burial  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 our country against the   nazis the free world we're peeling back the  layers of time to reveal london's lost cities 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 rays 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  crips and traces of lost rivers exist as little as   15 feet below the surface london secrets are  plentiful and they're about to be revealed 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 its axis armies had  rolled through much of europe the united states   and russia had 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 8 million residents the city needed  to build bigger and stronger 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   andrew eric how you doing great his name is  andrew smith he's been exploring london's   underground for over 20 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 ii so this is the   original bomb proof surface building but to get  down to the shelter we've got to go down 135 feet   well look at this all left huh this is  an original 1940s lift and down we go and here we are 135 feet under 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 300 000 different boxes   and storage bins down here all storing corporate  documentation for companies who don't want to   store all this stuff in their expensive offices  up on the surface but these aren't just ordinary   inexpensive storage shelves they were originally  built as bunk beds and in world war ii all the   people snapped here and we can see the remains  of the bunks are still here now used as shells   for all the storage facilities yeah you see the  springs right here there probably would have been   a little mattress above this even though there  were nearly three thousand feet of tunnels with   eight thousand 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 at 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 it just snakes off in every direction   i mean 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 that there's this labyrinth here   it's a maze it goes every direction it's 1400  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 airaid sirens sounded overhead panicked  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 in order to  get to the other level in this bunker there was   another spare case 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 10 to 50 feet below the  ground but the deep level shelters were at   least 100 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 shaft a  shaft camouflaged by another bomb-proof surface   buildings the bomb then would have had to travel  135 feet through the shaft and after all that it   would have had to detonate inside the shelter it's  an impossible scenario meaning this shelter was   truly bomb proof tell me how did they build this  place tunneling down here was carried out 24 hours   a day seven days a week on an alternating shift  system but the actual muck was only removed from   the surface under the cover of night darkness kept  the location top secret and the design was unique   two parallel tunnels were dug 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 at 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 joints   the rings were then held together  by two inch thick steel bolts so here we can see quite clearly the  actual engineering that was put together   all these different steel segments bolted together  with these massive two inch bolts this particular   form of construction was designed to withstand  six thousand 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 we're that deep here   and no problem this has never been compromised  before even from the weight of the train   note that 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 been converted at the  end of world war ii the the rails and   the sleepers would have been sunk into  this concrete that we're now standing on   and the trains would have been hurtling through  here at you know probably 40 50 miles an hour   and the people are gonna 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 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 yes  hello 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 here well not that you  can see here but would you believe this road used   to be where the roman waterfront was the romans  actually had this area as their waterfront their   warehouses their keys and boats would have been  warmed up here and unloading goods doesn't really   look like that now does it no it doesn't you're  saying in the second century this would have   been the river thames it was a pain yes almost  2 000 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 a.d 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 trade and like the modern city   it attracted people from all over the world  especially to its waterfront as the city grew   the romans built many wharfs 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 left over  from construction but creating new land caused   other problems the mighty river thames  began to shrink the man-made dwarfs 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 yes come with me just 20 feet below a modern office building  we were standing in the middle of ancient rome   and this is clearly 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've got an entire roman bath 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   inn 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 5th 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 buried them how far down below street level are we 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 build-up of rubbish  so that as archaeologists when we dig down   we get this sandwich historical  layer with the romans at the bottom   were at the bottom of this archaeological  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 looks like  to me yeah that is the phone is that a furnace   so how was this furnace operated you had to 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 going so that 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 isn't it 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   can you see there's a clay box shield the grooves  in it actually look very similar to the cement   cinders yes it meant that you could actually  sort of 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 buildings 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 no this   is rather a secret this is a hidden away it's  important that we preserve these remains because   these big office blocks take out all the  archaeology 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 a river can't just be turned off like a  tap 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 vanished   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 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 water   at 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 river's flow helped flush out  the waste of the growing city it's been over 130   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 ben nidsdale is a former flusher or wastewater  operative ben by chance good evening hello you   must be erin ben worked for thames water  the city's water utility for 30 years   there's a kit for you there 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 turned 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 sewer  when it rains it fills up quite quickly so   you're not expecting a flash flood but if you got  one what would happen down there we'd have to get   out immediately because the water could rise  up quite quickly and we could be washed away   so it is potentially quite dangerous  let's hope there's no rain tonight   flooding wasn't the only danger in the sewers  now is this is this looks like a step through   right here yep i got this right put your  other foot in here all right 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 stylish  we could form a boy band almost couldn't we   well you never get mugged when you're dressed  like this will you do where i come from   ben showed me a map of the  city's subterranean sewers   there are nearly a dozen rivers that have  been sewerized essentially paved over and   re-routed into man-made tunnels and these are  all subterranean hidden rivers almost entirely   on the south side of london several  of them are still open for stretches   but all the north side ones are completely  enclosed like the one you'll see tonight right eric this way all right we're  gonna go on this wagon here okay 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 all right nothing to it now when you step off try and step out into  the middle all right a little slick yep good   this is 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   is this actual river water that we're getting uh  yes it's a mixture of groundwater and sewage so is   this one of the lost rivers yes this is one of the  streams that used to be open through west london   and it was covered over during the 19th century  200 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   ranalei gardens in particular was known as a  place of public amusement notorious for drug   dealers and prostitutes and in the 17th century  ranula gardens is where you went for sex and drugs   and prostitutes but it's gone 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 rivers sewerized   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  sewers carrying waste into the thames   where it traveled through the heart  of the city and eventually out to sea 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 and ambitious   civil engineering project engineers dug new  tunnels and deepened those that already existed   thirteen hundred miles of tunnels were built  alongside the rivers and 13 000 miles of pipes and   drains were put in 318 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 completed they  intercepted the old sewers 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 how does the city above not cave into the   tunnels below now there are massive double-decker  buses that are always going down this street how   come 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 ways of heavy traffic today approximately 40 flushers like ben maintain  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 westminster abbey is the  coronation church of england   and all the kings and queens of great britain  since the 13th century have been crowned there   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 hatches where we  can actually go down and see thousands of burials   so everywhere you walk you're walking on a burial  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 are four inspection pits hey hey there is  something down there which allow maintenance crews   to occasionally perform conservation efforts  and they also provide access to the tombs   this is another inspection pit it's a it's a bit  bigger the abbey above was 800 years old but the   four 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 apps which was the the curved  end of the chapel looks like somebody put a   a few metal supports there are some crossbars to  make sure that this wasn't going to 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 or the original foundation yeah   definitely that's exactly it but how did an  ancient church get buried beneath a modern one 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 it's good fun 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 dead london's history   goes back more than 2 000 years and nowhere is  that more prominent than saint bride's church   one of london's earliest roman sites a bomb  leveled the place to the ground during world war   ii the following excavations discovered more than  just dirt and rubble they discovered a lost world st bride's church dates back to the first  moment the romans set foot in london   this small church's walls hide a  grisly secret that not many people know   exists and for hundreds of years  it's been right below their feet church director david mira was about to give  me full access to the off-limit chambers of   this ancient crypt david eric hey welcome to  some pride a church has stood on this site for   about 1500 years the original church was founded  by sin bridget 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 seventh version   of the church then in 1940 another great  catastrophe struck the nazis bombed london the 29th of december 1940 during one of the  great fire raids the church took a direct hit   from a fire bomb the outer walls and the tower  and spire survived but the rest of it was a   complete burnt out shell st prides was completely  obliterated and plans were made to rebuild the   church for the eighth 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   so up 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 a.d 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 yeah 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 saint bride's skeletons and  mass graves were undisturbed for over 150 years   hiding within the walls of the church's crips come  with me we're going down to the 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 so this is a a late 16th  century charnel house this uh i can describe what i'm seeing but  it's uh 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 when 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 uh the  brickwork here is again early 17th century   and you see it was entirely contemporary with  the with the bones hundreds of years thousands   of people have walked and do they have any  idea that this exists beneath their feet uh   most people don't no 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 crips 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 of london that 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 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  it making the war rooms a perfect target   at the dawn of world war ii 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 it's code name paddock today its location is still relatively unknown   but underground expeditionary andrew smith has  access to one of world war ii's best-kept secrets   all right this looks like quite a fortress here  huh it's big isn't it yeah lovely big gates   sadly 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 gray door in the wall  over there right here the place looks like   a utility shed they 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 um there's lots of mold 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 okay so let's go down watch your footing here  through 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 10 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 the core nucleus of central government and just here we've got the main power room 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 run the entire bunker  off this single generator we've got a generator   room we've got a map room we've got offices for  the ministry of 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   so nobody 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 going to defend  our country against the nazis the free world   you have to do a little bit of imagination  but you can see the outlines on the ground   that there probably would have been a table around  here right and you could see how the lights the   the there's this fan on the side here that would  have illuminated so that over the maps over here   right and this would have been it right here yeah  absolutely because we had churchill we had clemens   hackney the lord privy seal the three joint chiefs  of staff all sat around this rectangular table in   the middle of the wall cabinet room under dulles  hill and you'd have no idea you'd have no idea if   you're walking off the street you saw this little  tiny little pill box 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 to the british people 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   then 17 000 tons of soil and sand lay  above the substructure three and a half   foot thick walls of reinforced concrete  protected it from the shock waves of bombs   the sub basement was protected by another  six feet of reinforced concrete beneath that   and finally to top it off a layer of camouflage  netting was draped over the entire complex   making the outline of the surface building  undetectable to nazi planes from the air   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 amount  of money back in the late 1930s so paddock was   an engineering marvel a subterranean  city of its own with generator rooms   ventilation systems and top secret  war planning rooms but this completely   bomb-proof backup 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 a bit of a design thought there  because when the architect designed the building   he designed it without any toilets no toilet in  the entire place there is no toilet in the bunker   the toilet was actually in the surface building so  in the event of there being a mustard gas attack   or an airaid or something the bunker being  used in lockdown mode it was all sealed then   the sanitation for winston church  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 no figure the accommodations in  paddock weren't luxurious in fact churchill   himself wrote about his experience in  his memoirs calling it a dismal place   but paddock 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 lie hidden under  modern high rises how many lost rivers are yet   undiscovered as europe's largest city continues  to grow its underground has nowhere to go but down you

Channel: HISTORY

Views: 379,355

Rating: 4.8168411 out of 5

Keywords: history, history channel, history shows, history channel shows, cities of the underworld, history cities of the underworld, cities of the underworld show, cities of the underworld full episodes, cities of the underworld clips, Cities of the Underworld s1 e8, Cities of the Underworld se1, Cities of the Underworld season 1 episode 8, Cities of the Underworld se1 ep8, Cities of the Underworld 1X8, Season 1, Episode 8, London's Lost Underground Cities, London's Lost Cities

Id: Pf3XoJDk3YQ

Length: 41min 23sec (2483 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 03 2021