The stretch between Holborn and Aldwych sits 135ft down, deep enough to be turned into a wartime store, while Brompton Road housed an anti-aircraft brigade headquarters.
The Piccadilly line spent the Second World War doing rather more than carrying passengers. With the Blitz flattening street after street, there was a fear that rare objects and artefacts would go down with the buildings holding them. The safest place left was underground.
The stretch of tunnel between Holborn and Aldwych was picked. At 135ft down, or 41.1 metres, it was reckoned to be beyond the reach of any bomb, and it was turned into a store for national goods.
Storage was not the line’s only war work. Brompton Road, by then shut to passengers, housed the headquarters from which the 26th (London) Anti-Aircraft brigade was run.
Brompton Road is one of several closed stops on the dark blue line. The rest are York Road, Aldwych, Down Street, Park Royal and Twyford Abbey, Osterley and Spring Grove, and Hounslow Town. Urban explorers have long been drawn to the abandoned platforms, though many of the sites are now being sold off to developers and converted into homes and commercial space. Aldwych still earns its keep as a filming location.
Trains start at Cockfosters and finish at either Heathrow or Uxbridge, depending on the branch. There are 53 stations, 25 of them deep underground, across 45.96 miles (73.97 km). Passenger services began in December 1906. The airport link followed in 1977, the first of its kind anywhere.
The line also has the shortest hop between neighbouring stations on the whole network, the 300 metres from Leicester Square to Covent Garden. Twenty six of its stations came from Charles Holden, the architect behind Arnos Grove and Southgate.
The Holborn to Aldwych section, which sits 135ft (41.1 metres) below the surface.
York Road, Aldwych, Down Street, Brompton Road, Park Royal and Twyford Abbey, Osterley and Spring Grove, and Hounslow Town.
Passenger services began in December 1906. The airport link came in 1977, the first anywhere in the world.
45.96 miles (73.97 km), running from Cockfosters to either Heathrow or Uxbridge depending on the branch.
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