London Banter - WWII Bunker

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- - WWII Bunker (https://www.londonbanter.co.uk/london-transport/3012-wwii-bunker.html)

What I meant was, wasn't it possibly for them just to add the
prefabricated steel tunnel rings into an already existing cavern? It
would save a lot of effort.

If Clapham Town, Clapham North, and Clapham South are the public ones,
then where was Clapham Common?
There are only 3 tube stations in clapham as far as I know

No. There is a law against tunnelling within a
significant area around St Pauls. AFAIK there
is no such law concerning any other building, even Big Ben.

So how did the CLR manage to get their tunnels in then?

They used the Tardis to go back in time, and then built the tunnel before
the law was introduced.

Right. "Rails Through the Clay" says the cathedral Authorities (so
capitalized) "feared that the foundations of the cathedral might be
affected"; and a footnote reads: "The Cathedral had been given
statutory protection against damage from underground tunnels, in
the City of London (St Paul's Cathedral Preservation) Act 1935."

The footnote continues by citing "PRO MT 6/2728 and HO 205/266".
PRO is the Public Record Office and I presume the rest of this is
the numbers of two files there.

The CLR tunnels, of course, had been finished in 1900 -- but they
weren't quite as well aligned as the Yerkes tube tunnels opened a
few years later, and this restricted the size of trains that could
use them. With the 1930s plan to extend the line east and west
(mostly completed after the war), it was decided to enlarge the
tunnels to allow standard tube stock could be used, as well as
lengthening the stations to take 8-car trains.

It seems a reasonable conjecture that the "cathedral Authorities"
were similarly fearful of all this planned tunneling (which actually
happened in 1936-38), and wanted to make sure it was done with due
regard for their building; and that the protective 1935 act was a
response to their concerns. But that part is just my guess; for
all I know, maybe the timing of the act was just a coincidence.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "...blind faith can ruin the eyesight--
| and the perspective." --Robert Ludlum

My text in this article is in the public domain.

"Kat":
According to our duty manager... while the excavating was
taking place local people complained about the noise and
got the work stopped by finding some ancient law forbidding any
tunnelling under St Paul's Cathedral.

Yes, well, that sounds like someone telling a story that way because
it sounds good. As I just pointed out elsewhere in the thread, it
was actually the cathedral authorities themselves who objected, and
under a 1935 law.

Tom Anderson:
Hang on - was this *during* the war? "Bomb shelter? No thanks,
too noisy! We'll just sit here with these nice quiet BOMBS
FALLING ON OUR HEADS."?!?!

It seems entirely possible to me that when the construction began,
there was no announcement of what it was for. It seems to have been
the way of things at the time that if something was in any way war-
related, then you didn't make it public until either the public had
a clear need to know, or else the enemy clearly already knew about
it. (When the V-2 rocket attacks on London began, nothing was said
for 3 months about the explosions being caused by enemy missiles.
See my old posting http://groups-beta.google.com/group/uk.transport.london/msg/d4edd85f5a82dae4?dmode=source&hl=en.)

Neill Wormwood:
As a matter of interest, was there any work done at Bethnal Green or
Oval? As I recall there might have been some done at Oval, but it was
abandoned due to water ingress.

Right.

As to Bethnal Green, at the outbreak of war the Central Line still
ended at Liverpool Street. But construction was well advanced on the
eastern extension, and the *incomplete station* at Bethnal Green was
used as a shelter, as were a number of other incomplete or abandoned
stations throughout the system.

In 1943 the stairs leading to this shelter were the site of a crowd
crush that is the all-time worst disaster on any site that is now or
ever has been part of the London Underground system -- 173 people were
killed, many of them children. "Rails Through the Clay" says that
this accident was hushed up at the time; in fact it was reported on
in considerable detail, *but with no mention of where in London it
had happened*. (On request I will email a reasonable number of copies
of my transcription of the Times's articles; for copyright reasons
it would be inappropriate to post them.)
--
Mark Brader "A moment's thought would have shown him,
Toronto but a moment is a long time and thought
is a painful process." -- A. E. Housman

My text in this article is in the public domain.

Neill Wormwood:
As a matter of interest, was there any work done at Bethnal Green

Nick Cooper:
Abandoned due to persistent flooding.

Not mentioned in RTTC. Did they really start a further tunnel there?

or Oval? As I recall there might have been some done at Oval, but it
was abandoned due to water ingress.

Abandoned due to persistent flooding from unexepected water-bearing
stratum (i.e. not the buried River Effra, as per some accounts).

RTTC says "officially because water was encountered during tunnelling,
but the drawing was marked 'abandoned - shortage of labour'".
--
Mark Brader | "Red lights are not my concern.
Toronto | I am a driver, not a policeman."
| --statement made after collision, 1853

If Clapham Town, Clapham North, and Clapham South are the public ones,
then where was Clapham Common?
There are only 3 tube stations in clapham as far as I know

Please quote enough text to retain context. In this case, doing so
would also have given the opportunity to reread it, and see that
I mentioned *Camden* Town. Clapham Common is the station between
Clapham North and Clapham South; there is no Clapham Town station.
--
Mark Brader "There are three rules for writing the novel.
Toronto Unfortunately no one knows what they are."
-- Maugham

On 7 May 2005 14:05:19 -0700, "lonelytraveller"
wrote:

What I meant was, wasn't it possibly for them just to add the
prefabricated steel tunnel rings into an already existing cavern? It
would save a lot of effort.

What are the chances of the floor of any cavern (even if it existed)
being at the exact level that the tunnel needed to go, or no lower
that some sort of bridging would be required? What protection would
there be for the tunnel segments if the roof of the cavern collapsed?
Bear in mind in the latter case that the ground clearance would be
apprecaitively less than that for a tunnel through solid grond, makign
it more vulnerable to bomb penetration.
--
Nick Cooper

[Carefully remove the detonators from my e-mail address to reply!]

The London Underground at War:
http://www.cwgcuser.org.uk/personal/...ra/lu/tuaw.htm
625-Online - classic British television:
http://www.625.org.uk
'Things to Come' - An Incomplete Classic:
http://www.thingstocome.org.uk

I don't know, but given that, apparantly, the cavern is "just off the
running tunnel" I would have thought that this particular cavern was in
the appropriate location.