King William Street
The first
deep level tunnel to be built on the London Underground was the stretch running
from Stockwell to King William Street, situated not far from today's Bank
station and only metres away from the surface entrance to Monument station.
Opened in 1890, it was originally designed to be cable operated (very similar to
the cable cars that still run on the surface of the streets of San Fransisco),
but was changed to electric before opening.
Due to the original intention to make the line cable operated, the operation was
physically built with only a single platform at the terminators at King William
Street and Stockwell. Despite work to extend and expand the station to two
platforms it was found to be inadequate and was never very popular with
passengers. Additional technical problems plagued the line at its city end; the
power station for the line was situated at Stockwell and the combination of
steep inclines, sharp corners and the loss of power between Stockwell and the
opposite end of the line at King William Street meant that trains frequently
didn't have enough power to come up the final incline into the station and would
have to pull back and make another attempt! On more than one occasion a second
engine had to be brought in to help the beleaguered train into the station.
The decision was made to build a new tunnel just north of Borough which formed
the now Bank branch of the Northern Line. As soon as this was opened, King
William Street was closed on 24th February 1900 only to be opened briefly as an
air raid shelter during the Second World War.
The surface station was incorporated into street level buildings, but the
original fa?de (and building!) has long since gone due to extensive
re-development over the years. Today, the only access to King William Street
station is made via the basement of the recently built Regis House which houses
several IT companies who use some of the tunneling to convey fibre optic cables.
Allegedly, there are still posters up on the wall at the station that date back
to its days as an air raid shelter. Access is now very difficult not only due to
the entrance's location (a manhole in the basement of Regis House) but also it
has been said that the station area is now partially flooded and the air is
stale, requiring breathing equipment.
The old tunnels are still there however, now being used as utility and fibre
optic conduits. At one point they run directly above the existing Bank Northern
Line platforms - if you look up you can see directly into these tunnels through
several ventilation grilles in the roof. The tunnels were bricked up on either
end of the Thames crossing during the War and so its now impossible to cross the
river using them - they're probably now flooded too!
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