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A venture down under to Aldwych station


Have you ever wanted to visit an abandoned tube station? 😊


OK maybe it's only me.

A friend and I decided to give it a go. This was a wonderful opportunity to take in history and capture great images. 

Location

Aldwych station is just north of Temple station near the River Thames in the heart of London. It was built as an extension of the Piccadilly line going to Heathrow and was used in peak times. It eventually got closed due to the station losing revenue and now serves as location for films. 

Films

  1. V for vendetta 

  2. Atonement 

  3. Fast and Furious

Various other programmes  have been filmed at this location, but I honestly can't remember their names. 

The Tour

The venue is open for film crews who often hire out the venue for thousands of pounds per day. Not having a big Hollywood  budget, we weren't able to have the place to ourselves.  Instead we went on a tour, it was much cheaper and just as good. We had a main guide, two TFL film crew, aswell as other people. The tours take place monthly, are quite reasonable in price (Britmovietours.com).


Present on the tour were mainly the general public who wanted to know more about the station. This was a bonus as it meant free roam to get those "tog" shots. 

One negative thing is there are quite a few steps, so for the less physically abled this would be a bring draw back as there is only one way to get up and down. 

Things to look out for


The ticket desk; they literally don't make them like they use to. From the tile work on the walk way to the wooden frames . It all adds up to make you feel like you have gone back on time. I think I was too young to remember this set up, but I am sure some of you have seen this before.

The lift is another feature. With a folding bench (on the left) and an emergency hatch leading to another lift in the case of an emergency (on the right). Unfortunately it was an old device and didn't meet the health and safety regulations so we use the stairs. 

The stairs were spiralling and features an lovely air vent that  sucks up the air and keeps the air fresh. 


Air vent

There were some eclectic features some from the past, some are from film sets that didn't quite clean up after themselves.


Last but not least we have the tracks and the platforms. Fortunately a train from the 70's was docked up for us and we were able to hop on and take some images.

Overall, it was a great tour I had loads of fun, learned history,  a little about film production and most of all got some decent images. I would definitely recommend this to you if you are into history.

 

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