Hidden forty metres below the streets of our capital city is a mile-long network of secretive tunnels; The Kingsway Exchange tunnels. Cloaked in mystery under the Official Secrets Act for 70 years after being used as a MI6 base during World War II, the subterranean passages (much like Gretchen Wieners’ hair) are full of secrets.
Well, luckily for us Londoners, we’re getting a sneaky peek into the mysterious action, as the site is being transformed into a brand spanking new immersive tourist attraction and will open to the public as ‘the London Tunnels’ in the next few years.
The tunnels measure 25ft in diameter (the equivalent of three London buses, FYI) and span 8000 square-metres beneath High Holborn. They were originally constructed to serve as deep level wartime shelters and were later used as a base for Winston Churchill‘s “secret army”. They were then repurposed during the Cold War as a covert telephone exchange, operating the very first transatlantic telephone cable. So yes, these tunnels have a pretty impressive CV, to say the least.
The pathways were home to the UK’s deepest underground bar and also had a restaurant, fully equipped with enough food to feed hundreds of Londoners for months on end, in the case of a nuclear attack. The tunnels have been vacant for years, having been taken over by BT in the 1980s but all that is about to change.
The London Tunnels LTD bought the tunnels and is set to turn them into an immersive underground experience. The museum-slash-entertainment-space will undergo a $149 million transformation and is set to open to the public in late 2027 or early 2028.
Giant screens, interactive structures, scent-emitting technology and hundreds of individual acoustic pinpoint speakers will be installed to recreate the sights, sounds and smells of the tunnels during its wartime use. The attraction will give its visitors a truly immersive experience. The underground bar is also going to be revamped as part of the transformation. Artistic interpretation images have recently been created to give us an idea of what to expect – and it all looks pretty darn exciting.
Read more about the plans here.