Visited with @Minor @starlight @UrbanDuck @Boomstick84 @GreyAliyah and 2 non members
History (yoinked from wiki)
The Kingsway telephone exchange was built as a deep-level shelter underneath Chancery Lane tube station in the early 1940s, compromising two east-west aligned tunnels, one each side of the Central Line. Although intended for use as an air raid shelter, like many of the deep level shelters it was not used for its intended purpose and was instead used as a government communications centre. Material from the Public Records Office was stored there from 1945 to 1949.
The site was given to the General Post Office (GPO) in 1949. At the time, the Post Office was also responsible for telephones as well as postal system. The two-tunnel shelter was extended by the addition of four shorter tunnels, at right-angles to the original pair. This extension was completed by 1954, and in 1956 it became the UK termination point for TAT-1, the first transatlantic telephone cable.
Throughout the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, Kingsway Trunk Switching Centre (as it became known) was a trunk switching centre and repeater station with Post Office engineering staff totalling over 200 at its peak.
Also located on site was the Radio Interference Investigation Group, whose function was to prevent television viewers and radio listeners in north and central London from suffering interference to their service from external sources such as thermostats, fluorescent tubes and injection moulding equipment. The country's first Radiopaging terminal was also installed on this site in the 1970s.
The site had a staff restaurant, tea bar, games room and licensed bar. Its bar claimed to be the deepest in the United Kingdom, located at approximately 200 feet below street level. The site contained an artesian well and rations to maintain several hundred people for many months, ensuring a safe environment in case of nuclear attack.
By the early 1980s the site was subject to a phased closure after large quantities of blue asbestos were found on the site. By 1995 only the main distribution frame was still in service. This reportedly has been removed.
The Explore
3 of us planned to go "up town" to see about getting in this place but after a few messages and the creation of a new whatsapp group it evolved in to a small gaggle of explorers meeting up and trying our hands at entry.
These London exchanges and shelters have always had my interest just never got around to going as always had other things on,
The original entry point was a no go without our vertical ascension boots but a little thinking outside the box got us wondering around inside the big underground box and what can i say, easily one of my best explores to date if not the best. deep underground, loads of things to photograph and a bunch of explorers to have a laugh with.
all in it was a cracking night with some good people in an epic place
anyway onto the pics
Thanks for taking a look
History (yoinked from wiki)
The Kingsway telephone exchange was built as a deep-level shelter underneath Chancery Lane tube station in the early 1940s, compromising two east-west aligned tunnels, one each side of the Central Line. Although intended for use as an air raid shelter, like many of the deep level shelters it was not used for its intended purpose and was instead used as a government communications centre. Material from the Public Records Office was stored there from 1945 to 1949.
The site was given to the General Post Office (GPO) in 1949. At the time, the Post Office was also responsible for telephones as well as postal system. The two-tunnel shelter was extended by the addition of four shorter tunnels, at right-angles to the original pair. This extension was completed by 1954, and in 1956 it became the UK termination point for TAT-1, the first transatlantic telephone cable.
Throughout the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, Kingsway Trunk Switching Centre (as it became known) was a trunk switching centre and repeater station with Post Office engineering staff totalling over 200 at its peak.
Also located on site was the Radio Interference Investigation Group, whose function was to prevent television viewers and radio listeners in north and central London from suffering interference to their service from external sources such as thermostats, fluorescent tubes and injection moulding equipment. The country's first Radiopaging terminal was also installed on this site in the 1970s.
The site had a staff restaurant, tea bar, games room and licensed bar. Its bar claimed to be the deepest in the United Kingdom, located at approximately 200 feet below street level. The site contained an artesian well and rations to maintain several hundred people for many months, ensuring a safe environment in case of nuclear attack.
By the early 1980s the site was subject to a phased closure after large quantities of blue asbestos were found on the site. By 1995 only the main distribution frame was still in service. This reportedly has been removed.
The Explore
3 of us planned to go "up town" to see about getting in this place but after a few messages and the creation of a new whatsapp group it evolved in to a small gaggle of explorers meeting up and trying our hands at entry.
These London exchanges and shelters have always had my interest just never got around to going as always had other things on,
The original entry point was a no go without our vertical ascension boots but a little thinking outside the box got us wondering around inside the big underground box and what can i say, easily one of my best explores to date if not the best. deep underground, loads of things to photograph and a bunch of explorers to have a laugh with.
all in it was a cracking night with some good people in an epic place
anyway onto the pics
Thanks for taking a look
