WORLD WAR 3 fears are gripping the world at the moment, with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un squaring up to American President Donald Trump. Express.co.uk has mapped deep level shelters across the UK in the case of WW3.
Built during World War II, two more were planned at St. Paul’s and Oval, but these were not completed. The buildings above St.Paul’s were not considered stable enough, and difficult ground conditions at Oval stopped building work there.
Each shelter consists of a pair of parallel tunnels 5.05m in diameter and 370m long.
They were not completed until 1942, once the Blitz was over. Initially they were used by the government, but as bombing intensified five were opened to the public in 1944: Stockwell, Clapham North, Camden Town, Belsize Park and Clapham South.
The Goodge Street shelter was used by General Eisenhower, and the Chancery Lane shelter was used as a communications centre.
World War 3 – Deep level shelters can be found at eight locations around London
Clapham South is home to the deepest of all the tunnels, and was famously used to house the first 200 immigrants from the Caribbean who arrived on the MV Empire Windrush.
They slept there for four weeks until they found their own accommodation, with many settling in nearby Brixton.
World War 3 – Clapham South is one of the locations housing a deep level bomb shelter
In 1951 it became the Festival Hotel, providing cheap board for visitors to the Festival of Britain, but was closed after the fire at Goodge Street shelter in 1956.
All other shelters were sold by the government to Transport for London in the 1990s, leasing several out for archival storage.
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