London's Secret Underground - The Hidden Vaults

In today's video we visit a part of London that's hidden deep underground. These where originally built for the purposes of coal storage. This s part one of a two part series. Stay tuned for when we go even deeper underground.

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Music:
Intro:
Finger Music - Ultra

[liamkisbee]

As a bricklayer it blows my mind at the ammount of bricks they laid to make these tunnels and sewers, the ammount of hauling and digging and hand mixing of mortar its nearly unbelievable, especially when you do it for a living and know yourself the ammount of labour it takes.

[liamkatt]

So here I am on an island off the Pacific coast of Canada, watching a brilliant video of people exploring tunnels in London!

[tonymartin]

In the 1830s there were stationary steam engines here that hauled trains out of Euston, as the locos of the day were not strong enough.
The 'sheaf tentioning chamber' was where the ropes that hauled the trains passed over large pulleys to keep them tight.

[AmalgmousProxy]

To me the most impressive part is the fact that the entire place was built with hand laid bricks.

[SergeiJonovich]

Some of those places looked like they could have been the locations for the James Bond Skyfall scenes for the chase through subterranean London.

[pattracey]

The sheave tension tunnel you saw marked on control panel was probably referring to a shaft full of cables and pulleys that controlled movement of lift/platform through different levels. Great video👍

[Peter-nvwu]

There appears to be more and more to this chamber, with all the construction work going and electrics that are being fitted I cant help wondering what use is planned for these chambers, something maybe that needs to be secret and hidden away from prying eyes.The chambers just seem to go on and on, give thought to the guy's who dug everything out by hand and all the bricklayers who came behind them, there was probably far more to be found but that could be a job for waders. Great video !

[richardlangly]

20 seconds in and I already know this is going to be a good one.

[todayonthebench]

That old coal vault seems like a fairly huge place.
In a city as sprawling as London, a place like this could have some use if cleaned up and renovated a bit. (primarily renovated for ensuring structural rigidity, the actual brick walls is a nice theme.) Then it could serve as some form of office space, maybe industrial, or apartments if housing regulations are sufficiently relaxed about the need for natural lighting.

[KeithHambidge]

Fascinating stuff the underground has so many secrets

[SueGirling]

Hi Simon, hmmm curious and curiouser lol. I can't wait for pt 2 to see what's down the hole. Thanks for sharing, much love. xx 🙏💖

[doric_historic]

The bricks used and laid during history is the most fascinating part of history...

[TheSWolfe]

A really enjoyable, informative explore! So much below us we rarely think twice about (until now). Thx 4 peek into the deep!

[imranzazai]

England is very beautiful and I am your new subscriber from Afghanistan.

[zulkiflijamil]

The London Underground was and still is excellently built. Great engineering feat. 🥇🥉🏆🏅🥈

[TheGardeneruk]

brilliant video love your videos, stay safe, all of you and keep up the good work

[YorkshireRose]

Well, that places has definitely been flooded to a good few feet deep - say, about 20 feet, at some time, and for some time, judging by the tidemarks on the wall. At first, my thoughts were along the lines of some form of reservoir (freshwater/foul water) but the breaker panel poo-poos that idea.

Now then, "What is a sheave tensioning room room" you ask? - It's a room where you would find pulley blocks, or "sheaves" so somewhere, there was a cable hauled railway system. The sheave tensioning room would be equipped with some cleverly thought out system to maintain an even and constant tension on the cables, and on the face of it, you wouldn't want sudden shock loading on those cables, nor would you want those cables twanging and wanging about - That wouldn't make for a favourable ride, not to mention the risk of a cable breaking under a shock load.

Can't wait to see the next part! - Just one thought though, what if those sensor activated lights also sounded an alert somewhere to let a remote operator know there was "activity" in there? As I say, just a thought.

[davidsirett]

very interesting place.
loving the cobbled floor.

[jeffjefferson]

Pretty exiting! London goes down deep! I would have expected a lot more water. But it seems to be holding just fine.

Greetings,


Jeff

[alanschwartz]

Very interesting place, you found. Very intricate and just for the storage of coal? London seems to riddled with underground tunnels of all sorts. Can you imagine these places being built? The brickwork and all. They were certainly meant to last.