World of Mysteries - Hidden City of London

London Europe's biggest and busiest metropolis visited by 28 million tourists every year they come for history culture and entertainment but behind the glamour of the bright lights lies a concealed sinister city that most travelers don't get to see this is the hidden city of London London is a city rich in history but you won't see it all from a double-decker bus the tunnels that stretch for miles miles they're all still top-secret I don't have access to them any more than you do in this program we explore a secret subterranean world London's the most haunted capital in the world but the Tower of London is the most haunted building in the world we hunt for ghosts of centuries past and unravel the most famous English mystery of all Jack the Ripper in 1888 Jack the Ripper was the most feared name in London the Ripper preyed upon prostitutes of the East End in just 10 weeks he savagely murdered five women but to this day his true identity remains a mystery in Victorian England the East End of London was a gloomy network of narrow cobbled streets shrouded in thick smog life here was hard we're talking about real poverty before Social money paid to people or anything like that if you didn't have the money you didn't steal it you died you couldn't feed yourself women it was even even harder and so many of them in desperation would turn to prostitution women prostituting themselves in this area for three pennies two pennies or a loaf of stale bread so what you have in this area is a lot of drunkenness you have a lot of domestic violence that murder itself was uncommon in the fall of 1888 one man would send the murder rate off the scale the Ripper is the world's most notorious serial killer his gruesome crimes have spawned hundreds of movies and books but his true identity has remained a mystery for over 110 years and his story continues to vex the public's appetite for the truth so who was he why wasn't he caught and how did he escape detection we investigate the case and follow author and Ripper guide Donald run below around London's East End to the actual murder scenes hi good evening ladies and gentlemen welcome to London walks Jack the Ripper walk my name is Donald I'm your guide for this evenings walk everyone you meet on a Jack the Ripper tour has got a suspect of a theory each of them believes that they have the solution they'll always tell me that he is a doctorate member of the royal family in their uncle Sydney way back was believed to mean Jack the Ripper the tour begins on the boundary between two of the oldest parts of London the city and the East End the City of London still has its own separate identity from the rest of London it has its own Lord Mayor its own form of government and as far as this story is concerned its own police force the contrast between the city of London and the East End is as obvious today as it was in 1888 the East End is a cosmopolitan mix of cockney markets and Asian communities today as then it is patrolled by the Metropolitan Police the city on the other hand is the center of Finance and banking its buildings symbolic of money and power these streets are patrolled by the City of London police a century ago rivalry between these two forces was intense now straight away you see the problems you're going to get when you have a serial killer like Jack the Ripper who decides to ignore this artificial division between the two police forces and start zigzagging backwards and forwards across the boundary all of the rippers victims were prostitutes these women knew the risks they faced especially at the height of hysteria over the murders but their choice was to continue walking the streets or starve Jack the Ripper would choose his victims at random and kill them before horrific ly mutilating their bodies the autopsy reports have been examined by forensic pathologist dr. Ian Hill this would suggest that her jaw had been lifted up so the knife would be drawn across her throat she was trying to claw the murderers hand away from her throat with a jagged her abdomen was laid widely open her throat was cut sufficient to kill her was severely mutilated the tip of the nose was almost severing the spinal column all of the organs were taken out heart had been removed and was not found some stage she put up a fight the extreme violence of these crimes set them apart from other murders of the time historian John Ross is a retired policeman and an expert on the Ripper killings when you start getting people cut up and bouts of the bodies taken out that is unusual it was a series of murders that did create a lot of ripples very very high up in society Matthews the Home Secretary was you know castigated over it Sir Charles Warren lost his job as commissioner as a result of it Queen Victoria was asking questions of her of her Parliament's about this and there will be a lot of pressure on the police to do something about it the murders were committed within an area of less than one square mile so why did police fail to secure a conviction forensic science was very very limited in what they were able to do fingerprinting in 1888 hadn't been invented so the policing in those days would be in presence policing you would have policemen out in the streets walking up and down being seen by the public in the hope to stop crime being committed back in 1888 you couldn't tell the difference between animal and human blood so a murderer lots of slaughterhouses in this area he'd walk through the streets in a smock covered with his victim's blood he could have left his fingerprints at the murder scene and there's no way you could have actually linked him to the murder the only way the police could arrest the killer was to hope to catch him in the act it was a massive logistical operation extra bobbies were drafted in from every police station in London but would this be enough to stop Jack the Ripper in 1888 the City of London was in panic two women had been brutally murdered and Jack the Ripper was still terrorizing the streets it wasn't until one month after the first murder that police had a breakthrough Jack the Ripper got careless on September 30th in a frenzy of attacks he struck twice in one night I want to talk about the first murder on the night of the double event now the body was found at one o'clock in the morning by a salesman and as he turned his pony into the yard way he lived so the pony shied away it jumped away from this bundle lying in the gateway the first victim of that night a Swedish prostitute named Elizabeth stride when the salesman went to get a light the murderers slipped out from behind the Gateway heading west towards the city cross that invisible boundary between the two police forces picked up Catherine Eddowes and came with her here to mitre square now there are two things you need to know about mitre square in 1888 first of all it was patrolled every 15 minutes by a City of London policeman the other thing about mitre square is that it had an echo on it so that for eight of those 15 minutes as the policemen patrolled the surrounding streets it was always within earshot of the square when shouting scream and cry for help in those eight minutes he could pick up in the surrounding streets but then so too could the policeman and his family there so too could the night porter there so too could the witnesses out there who saw a doze at 1:35 a.m. talking to her killer with her hand on his chest 15 minutes later Catherine Eddowes was found dead in mitre square by a patrolling police constable she'd been ripped open the insides lifted out and dropped over her right shoulder and nobody had seen or heard a thing why no one heard her being slaughtered remains a mystery it was his second killing in 40 minutes what he did next defies logic he calmly returned to the East End the one direction that would lead him straight into the massive police manhunt that was already going on within minutes his trail had been picked up blood was discovered dripping from a street fountain he is then followed to an apartment block which is where we are heading in the direction of now the steam running left to right behind me is called Galston Street and the apartment block immediately behind me was here in 1888 if you follow those three lights down the wall they terminate a little doorway now covered by a roll of shutter but it was in that doorway then an open doorway that the message was written in chalk on the wall and the piece of apron on which the knife had been wiped was dropped on the floor below now the message that was written inside that doorway said the Jews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing everybody argues over it you've got this double or triple negative and what does it mean at 5:00 a.m. Sir Charles Warren Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police crossed into City police territory to see the message for himself ignoring the protest of the detectives guarding it Warren did a baffling thing he wiped the evidence from the wall but why experts believe his motives were not as corrupt as they first appeared immigrant communities have always doubled as convenient targets four fingers of suspicion and a century ago these streets were home to Polish Jews there was a tremendous amount of anti-semitic feeling in this country at this time I think it's very very very very possible mr. child Warren are seeing this was very concerned about the perhaps anti-semitic rioting that would take place afterwards I really believe it was a man who was trying to police London properly and was just getting rid of something which might incite racial intolerance as the media worked the public into a frenzy hoax letters flooded the mailboxes of those connected with the case one letter gave the murderer a name he would never lose the name Jack the Ripper doesn't appear until after the fourth killing a letter is received at the Central News Agency begins dear boss and signed Jack the Ripper every graphologist has come down with the same thing that that letter wasn't probably written by some psychopath or psychotic it was probably somebody was working the central news agency who was arrested and it was a way of stimulating interest in the paper and increasing the circulation on the paper but then it's after that you get a letter sent to mr. Lusk of the Whitechapel vigilance committee better I believe genuine at a lot of other people believe genuine the parcel contained a piece of putrifying kidney infected with Bright's disease the same condition that plagued the fourth victim was this man a real-life Hannibal Lecter the letter was addressed from Hell and read mr. Lusk says yeah I'll send you from the kidney I took from one woman woman preserved it for you t'other piece off Friday night it was very nice I may send you the bloody knife that took it out if only you wait a while longer signed catch me when you can mr. Lusk now there's no signature on that one and it's almost as though our murderer is rejecting the name Jack the Ripper but with the death of Mary Kelly the Jack the Ripper murders came to an end and ever since that time there's been a great guessing game why what happened did he die was he locked up did he commit suicide who was him over a century later the trail of Jack the Ripper has gone cold but can we unmask the Whitechapel murderer the three official suspects were Montagu Drouet Aaron Kosminski and Michael ostrog we know a lot about hunting you Joyce we know his family background we know that he was a teacher he was a lawyer committed suicide soon after the Mary Kelly killing his own family believed him to have been Jack the Ripper number two on the police list was kozminski now kozminski was a Polish Jew a homicidal maniac who believed he was controlled by forces from outer space these forces told him that he had to eat the food that he found on the streets number three on the police list was Michael ostrog he may actually be locked up in prison in France at the time of the murders so why he was a suspect we don't really know ever since that time the list has been added to it gets longer year by year the monarchy has traditionally played a central role in London life with Buckingham Palace at its heart the daily spectacle of the changing of the guard is watched by hundreds of tourists in revealing the true identity of the Ripper one popular theory puts the Royals themselves squarely in the dock did Jack the Ripper have blue blood the Royal conspiracy centers on the Duke of Clarence who was a grandson of Queen Victoria potentially a future King of England but according to a particular theory he makes a secret marriage to a commoner Roman Catholic and this secret match was allegedly witnessed by Mary Kelly the fifth of the rippers victims who tells her friends of this secret marriage and the friend she tells are the four earlier victims so you have this great plot to protect the throne voles the police the Freemasons and the royal surgeon Sir William gala will be driving around these streets and having these poor women killed and mutilated it's not true I mean poor man endures strokes I'm done before nobody can say absolutely certain who it was it will go on and on and on forever all I would say is going from my police experience if no murder happened after the 8th of November mo Jane telling how long would they keep that a heed going to Whitechapel how long would they be flooding the area extra policemen began patrolling the East End shortly after the first murder with such a high-profile case the force couldn't withdraw them until they were convinced that the murders would cease but all patrols stopped suddenly on December 10th only one month after the body of the fifth victim was found why now that to me to a police officer will say that those in charge of that case were absolutely convinced they knew who Jenner ever was the key officers in this was Detective Inspector Frederick abberline he then reported to a Detective Chief Inspector Swanson Donald Sutherland Swanson none of the detectives investigating the case ever revealed the rippers true identity but in 1987 new information turned the mystery on its head descendants of Detective Inspector Swanson found a police book among his possessions in the book were his own penciled notes the family spokesman is great-grandson Neville Swanson the policeman that was put in charge of Jack Ripper case was my great-grandfather he was called Donald Sutherland Swanson and I've known since childhood I suppose that that he had that job and that his papers existed somewhere in the family so quoting from ánotá says the only person who ever saw the murderer unhesitatingly identified the suspect the incident he was confronted with him but he refused to give evidence against him on suspects returned to his brother's house in Whitechapel he was watched by City police by day and night knowing the identity of the killer the police had him committed to a lunatic asylum in a very short time the suspect with his hands tied behind his back was sent to Stepney workhouse and then to Colney hatch and died shortly afterwards in the detectives closing notes he names the man he believed to be Jack the Ripper kozminski Smits Osmonds his Minsky kozminski was the suspect but if the police were so certain that they had their man one mystery still remains why was he never prosecuted the police could or would have prosecuted him but they obviously needed people to testify and kozminski was a Polish Jew and the people who would have testified were also Polish Jews and they didn't wish to testify and have that on their conscience so they refused to testify so the police knowing who Jack River was therefore had him put into secure detention and then the murders stopped now all I would say I don't know J the Reformers but if the two officers that were investigating that crime in 88 said he was kozminski that's probably good enough for me and until somebody can disprove kozminski disprove all that to me that I think is probably the best bet myself for the refer the name of James River Jack the Ripper was one man with a taste for murder but through the centuries London's ruling classes have executed many more than he did our investigation into the hidden city of London continues with a traditional English custom each year on November 5th hundreds of bonfires burn across the city as million celebrate Guy Fawkes night Guy Fawkes was a 17th century terrorist captured trying to blow up the houses of parliament with two tons of gunpowder Fox was imprisoned in one of the most brutal and terrifying places of all the Tower of London yeoman warder Phil Wilson has patrolled the tower for five years was Guy Fawkes was caught in the act there with the flame just about ready to light the Gunpowder it was bought to the Tower of London he would have been asked to name all his co-conspirators of course he refused a torture warrant was issued that meant being placed on the wall in manacles hung so the weight of your body tortured you that was called soft torture Guy Fawkes didn't break under soft torture so his jailers resorted to more exacting methods of interrogation ah guy thought soon willingly gave the name Hall his co-conspirators probably anybody else he could think of at the time the signatures on these confessions before and after his tortures showed just how broken the prisoner became signing them would condemn him to a very public death public executions were great affairs almost like public holidays everybody was given the day off to attend executions lots of cheering lots of rushing forward and getting pieces of rag into the blood of the poor victim freshly decapitated before of course the head was taken to London Bridge and the body returned to the tower again the burial without ceremony in the chapel Guy Fawkes was a lucky man at least he is remembered for his crime in the chapel at the Tower of London 19th century workmen made a terrifying discovery under the flagstones they unveiled a sinister secret they found over a thousand five hundred bodies beneath the floor these of course all been executed on Tower Hill brought to the chapel for burial buried in an unmarked grave no stone to mark the spot no priest to say a prayer no friends to grieve at the graveside only 33 bodies were ever identified one of them was Queen and Boleyn second wife of Henry the eighth beheaded here on Tower Green when unbelief had was lifted her eyes were still surveying the scene and her lips were still emerged from prayer which made the witnesses rather afraid because of course she had been found guilty of witchcraft and they left the scene very quickly at night some have reported seeing an villains tormented ghost wandering the tower her severed head by her side but she's in good company the tower is said to be the most haunted building in the world some claim to have seen two laughing boys playing in the greens and running in the corridors are they the ghosts of the boy princes held at the tower by the evil uncle Richard Duke of Gloucester the boys mysteriously vanished but nearly two centuries later skeletons were discovered buried under a staircase at the tower the riddle of their disappearance will never be solved some believe it was their jealous uncle who ordered the boys to be suffocated in their sleep so that he would take their place on the throne but there is one corner of the tower where the bloody truth is darkest of all we're now in the lower chamber of the Wakefield Tower this is a building that most looks like what people conceive to be a dungeon it's cold it's dark it's dank the small windows would they give no chance of escape the only way out of this chamber was of course through the door it was after the Battle of Wakefield that some 200 prisoners during the War of the Roses were marched to the Tower of London placed in this chamber wounded and diseased they were left to rot and die the desperate prisoners died in unimaginable pain and suffering and their corpses were dumped in the River Thames but the tower is not the only building in London said to harbor the dead the West End is the Broadway of Europe this is theater land with over 40 play houses in a single square mile the Theatre Royal at Drury Lane is hundreds of years old and seats two and a half thousand theater goers both living and dead Mark Fox has been at the theater since 1992 he claims to know of at least three ghosts that haunt the building and he has a possible explanation for one of them in the 1840s they created a new entrance for the poorer working-class people which allowed them access to the top levels of the building from the inside so from these stairs they knocked through this wall to create an entrance to the upper circle and in this void area they found a skeleton with a dagger in its ribs dressed in 18th century garb and that all ties in with the story of the man in gray now here in the upper circle they've been many reported sightings of the mysterious man in gray sometimes by more than one person at the same time he always visits during the daytime is friendly and it's seen as a good omen for a show if he appears during the dress rehearsal or the early stages he's dressed in eighteenth-century clothes and he walks all the way along the back of the upper circle and disappears into the war in addition to his eerie walk across the back of the upper circle the man in gray has also been sighted sitting in this very seat and once during an on-stage photo call over half the cast of glamorous night reported seeing him sitting here looking at them so what is it like to witness a ghost nick Bromley's close encounter came while working here as company manager in 1987 as I stood here I was watching the stage like this I suddenly was pushed vaunt ly out of the way like that knocked out of the way by his hand I spun round thinking of a somebody playing a joke but the wing was completely empty Bromley had had a brush with Dan lino Leano was a well-loved performer who at the height of his fame beat Charlie Chaplin to become world champion clog dancer he was later renowned as the king of pantomime Dame's two nights later the actresses were waiting in the wings there is parts but to go on stage for their scene and one was standing exactly where I was standing and as she stood there she felt a hand pull her wig like that she screamed but there was no one there and our theory is that damn who was a bit of a ladies man would knock a man out of the way if he was blocking his entrance but just give the lady a little bit of a tweak to move her aside Leno died tragically at the age of 44 he had been plagued all his life by ill health and used lavender water to mask the smell of his incontinence today at the Theatre Royal he has not only felt but smelt people began to tell stories of smelling the lavender and it would come in waves waves of the strong scent would assail certain parts of the wing I've smelt it just behind where you're standing and also in the company office G you a quick change room and the smell comes from nowhere it suddenly drifts across on the air but the most notorious of all jury lanes ghosts is the boisterous spirit of Joey Grimaldi his act is used by clowns throughout the world he was renowned for the energy that he had in his performances he used to run from here to saddle as well in less than 20 minutes in order to give two performances in either building on the same night he worked so hard and he did so many acrobatic tricks that he actually ended up completely crippled and he died young frustrated by the premature end to his career Grimaldi has stayed at the theatre to lend encouragement to his fellow actors he's renowned for peering here on the stage and giving a kick up the bottom to any lazy actors the theatre stands on a site first used for performance in 1663 the early buildings were hastily erected with little thought for safety there being four theaters on this site and in here is the original built during the reign of Charles a second of the four theaters two of them have burnt down in 1982 when we were playing here with the Pirates of Penzance the farman called us up in a great panic saying he could smell the smell of burning well we searched everywhere backstage every bit of scenery every problem nothing went home but twice that night he phoned the fire brigade and had him come and check out again because he was certain the place was on fire well it wasn't but the only thing we can think is it was a manifestation of one of those original fires which destroyed the building the River Thames snakes through the heart of London it's as much an icon of the city as the buildings it passes and each landmark tells its own tale but at one building on the Thames there are bizarre happenings its occupants cannot explain in search of London's darker mysteries we sail 22 miles up the River Thames to one of the most glorious palaces in England Hampton Court represents five hundred years of royal history and with it countless hauntings the palaces priceless art collections attract 700,000 visitors every year guided tours are given by waters like ian Franklin the most famous resident the fountain kolkhozes Henry the I fit was his pleasure palace music a place where he came over to enjoy himself with atmosphere galore it's just a tremendous place to be even in James the first time William Shakespeare in the King's Men are said to have performed here so it's a great tradition of entertainment patrolling the palace after dark Franklin has had some unsettling experiences times when he spelled the company of others we are trying security officers and we know when a sound or a feeling or sensation or a smell belongs because that's our job the sound of footsteps going across a carpeted floor makes a certain noise so does the sound of someone walking across an uncarpeted floor when you hear that uncarpeted sound in a room with a carpet as some of my colleagues have done you obviously take that perhaps with a little bit more than a pinch of salt there are too many reliable witnesses to just totally disregard it I don't think you need to give a nine to these things to make them valid the fact is that things do happen my own personal experience occurred in some rooms quite close to the Great Hall in fact the fingertips on my left hand became cold and gradually that cold crept up through my fingers through my hand up to my elbow and basically by the time I felt cold up to my elbow my hair was standing on end and I didn't feel particularly comfortable it was suggested to me that something was draining energy from the through my left hand if someone can give me a scientific explanation I'd love to hear it ghost hunter Robert snow could be just the man Franklin has invited him to Hampton Court to investigate hello Pierre Robert yes I am you must be in nice to meet you Robert - Seeley let's get into the warm shall we well thanks very much for coming to see us tonight I hope you journey our won't be in vain I will show you something which will interest you yes why do you think panting halt Palace is actually haunted is it a little more than hearsay myths and legends I think Hampton Court is quite unique in that for about 150 years there are stories of things which seem to happen on a relatively regular basis there's a whole weight of evidence from people working to die people who are sensible enough not to exactly or make things up so it was a lady who was in fact on this very staircase that's a trainer the lady who had a near-death experience lived in the apartment just up there came out and saw this apparition coming up the stairs wearing a pair of leather kid gloves that was something that's stuck in her mind and she liked to discover that a friend of hers in Germany had died on that very night at about the same time and she was buried in a pair of leather kid gloves people say they have paranormal experiences I don't doubt I've had paranormal experiences myself I seen ghosts I've had some very noisy ghosts if you actually think that there are no such things as paranormal activity in the world it's all imagination well then it's time to think again well this is a whole - Gary Robert what's supposed to happen here well this is the place where Katherine Howard is supposed to come back and visit the scene of where she was arrested to try and attract Henry the eighth's attention he was in the she thought he was in the holyday closet just through that doorway there what sort of experiences two people have what are you feeling now it feels cold feel colder suddenly just just now my hands on my face nice yeah absolutely and this in extreme cases people actually fine yeah that's that's rather strange because people don't usually faint because a place is a little on the cool side well absolutely but it certainly happens here there's probably another reason I can't see that it's just affected it is a little colder well that's that's the mystery of the Haunted gallery I mean that basically in a nutshell is it 90% of hauntings can be explained through careful investigation but it's the odd 10% that interest me and it's just possible that this this gallery what happens here people fainting could possibly fall into the odd 10% Thomas wait what is this room cool this is the War Z closet so cool because it dates back to war zis time we're thinking it might have been a private chapel and it's got a absolutely dreadful reputation visitors have come in here and complained of seeing dogs amazing is not a does a big hairy ones apparently and that particular area over there that has got a very bad reputation indeed this is probably a gobbler oh yes or an oratory of some description I think what we will do initially is to set up some control objects see perhaps now a control object is a coin you can have a key or something you place it on a piece of card and draw a line around it so if the object actually moves you can tell what direction it's moved and how much nobody really knows why you never see the move you never hear the move but you can see the result afterwards I put this carefully in the because if you can shine it on the floor leaving another set of controls in the room snow sets up as camcorder to keep a watchful electronic eye sounds like a good idea excellent London said to be the most haunted capital in the world Britain is the most haunted country in the world and the story is that the Tower of London is the most haunted building in the world there again like Hampton Court is extremely old it's very difficult to find a very old building which hasn't Sun myth or legend attached ridge there's the site of Newgate Prison is said to be haunted this Bartholomew's Church I believe even Buckingham Palace and houses of parliament have their own gifts the list goes on and then okay moment let's get back and see what we've got I wonder of anything has moved a bit obviously has champ coins no nope I'm afraid not an idea nothing nothing at all at all yes but I mean it doesn't mean to say there isn't any paranormal activity here for wonder pebble woods old buildings at night are not the most welcoming of places but imagine how disturbing it could be in a part of town that has never seen daylight Westminster in the heart of London is Britain's political hub and home to matters of vital national security but these buildings were not built to withstand the impact of the Blitz of World War two instead Winston Churchill's War Cabinet held their meetings at a top-secret location below ground now a museum the cabinet war rooms have been left exactly as they were when they were abandoned in 1945 the museum's director is Phil read war cabinet is basically a very small number of Ministers under the Prime Minister meeting here to control the war no question of the general public knowing about it the principal people of course it didn't know about it were the Germans themselves I mean they would have expected Churchill to be somewhere certainly several hundred feet further underground and this and probably somewhere less likely than the centre of town I don't suppose the British mented there's a double bluff but I think probably that's the way it worked out really map room duty officer the real fortifications came in the form of a six to ten feet thick piece of concrete reinforced with steel rails and steel rods that really covered the whole site to one whole floor depth above us and that theoretically was meant to stop up to 250 kilo bombs it wasn't a popular site to to sleep over to work in no daylight and really great feeling of safety despite everything this is where those poor poor sods had to work basically around the clock really Winston Churchill himself is probably the least keen occupant of the place it was largely because he was a man who basically didn't like to give his head below ground and preferred to be in the face of things in the action really renowned for instance for going on the roof during bombing raids and watching the air raids today the cabinet war rooms are visited by 300,000 tourists every year but during World War two they were so secret that only a handful of people knew about them even so the authorities realized that security could be compromised at any time as a precaution they built reserve bunkers elsewhere somewhere I've been waiting to get into that in literally years at dollas Hill in North London a group calling themselves subterranea Britannica are preparing for a mission to seek out and explore the secret city under London today they have access to one of Churchill's reserve command bunkers exploring this subterranean world has become a passion for Nick catbird as a senior member of the group he spends most of his spare time burrowing in the dark Wow places like this are part of the history of London I think a lot of people are unaware exactly what's under their feet what's around them I like to explore things if possible for the first time you know doesn't worry me if it gets a bit dirty it's a rather reminiscent of the the turrets and the Maginot Line in France err there are places I've been to where we've got one ear in the water and the other ear on the ceiling and you've got about three inches of breathing space and that's all part of the fun of it one of these should be the map room where the usual cabinet would have met I find it very atmospheric the water on the floor the rotting cables it's it gives you a sense of history to to be here for the first time this is the place this is the cabinet war room this is where they would have sat Churchill would have chaired the war cabinet into this very room install the cigars is that you can understand how he hated it though can't you I needs memoirs he put how it's far from the light of day a most dismal place that was it supposed to be bomb-proof I think they hoped it would be but you know nothing is necessarily totally bomb-proof its purpose would have been as a standby to the cabinet war rooms under Whitehall if Whitehall had been blitzed then the whole war cabinet would have moved to Dallas Hill now should we just ask door on the right here here we go this is it that's original control panel yeah smell the diesel still can you start it Robin give it the crane no well there are probably tunnels that we haven't been told about tunnels maybe that go from Buckingham Palace to to whisk the Queen away in the event of war there are certainly tunnels that link all the major government buildings that could be used a man-sized passages and we just don't get to see those there's a system of tunnels in London that is known about and used by millions every year the equivalent of the entire population of Australia traveled through a 250 mile network of subway tunnels it's known as the tube but these spaces have not always been used for transport when the population was forced underground to shelter from the Blitz Tube stations doubled as life-saving bomb shelters 130,000 people who sleep every night in tube stations raised a good many problems they get there early and so need something to eat long before bedtime what these modern commuters don't know is that every day they pass inches from a secret world Mike Ashworth and Peter woods are employed to keep an eye on this forgotten part of London a lot of people have this real fascination with what's actually down underneath London and of course it's not just the underground there are miles and miles of other passageways some of which were used in the war and some of which of course are still in use today I think one of the strangest things about London is effectively hollow there's actually an awful lot of spaces down below that some people are aware of but a lot of people are quite fascinated by this is down street tube station trains pass here without stopping no longer needed the station was bricked up in 1932 but with the outbreak of war down Street was reopened for use but not as a station and not to the public certain stations were completely altered to become special command bunkers and some of the line became a factory making aircraft parts down streets platforms were converted to how special communications equipment operated by military personnel this is what was the platform this effectively is the back wall and over here behind this wall that was built is where the trains actually run in this space they built the communication center effectively this is the telephone exchange damn Street Station in the early months of the Churchill Premiership late 1940 was actually used quite frequently by the Prime Minister and members of the War Cabinet and there are still places that we can imagine Churchill being in things like the dining room or the bathrooms has been a very peculiar experience to being down here as a shelter a very divorced in many respects from what's going on up top it was a very different city that you went back up to in the morning you know due to bombing raids it's not to say that you were completely safe there were several occasions unfortunately were bombs actually did penetrate the tunnels and special measures were taken at certain sites to build protective caps across the tops of shafts in fact we're about 60 feet below the ground here in 1932 the lifts were taken away and since then it's been used as a ventilation shaft and here you can see the baffles that were built in to stop the bombs from penetrating from the surface down to the bottom of the station London's network of hidden tunnels spreads deep and wide but just how deep and wide is something we'll never know it's a known fact that white hole is is crisscross by tunnels quite vast in size and in complexity and but is also known fact that they're all still top secret and I don't have access to them any more than you do I think the thing that's fair is to say is it's actually far more crowded down here than it was 100 years ago I think there's a lot yet to find we haven't run out of places yet so if you're one of the millions who visit London this year be aware that there is more to this city than you'll ever read about in your guidebook you you you

Channel: Naked Science

Views: 1,649,392

Keywords: hidden, city, london, secret, underground, tunnels, top, haunted, tower, john, ross, crime, historian, donald, rumbelow, ripper, expert, prostitutes, murder, author, symbolic, paranormal, activity, rivalry, serial, killer, subterranean, britannica, victims, horrific, mutilation, apparition, forensic, pathologist, suspect, identity, torture, supernatural, confession, exectution, anne, boleyn, disappearance, royal, dungeon, famous, joey, clown, grimaldi, notorious, palace, king, henry, spirit, skeleton, guido, old, myth, legend, prison, museum, ghost

Id: rdghT9I37S8

Length: 50min 36sec (3036 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 18 2014