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00:00London. On the surface, it's a buzzing modern metropolis, but underneath lie
00:13secret hidden worlds, all but forgotten by the millions of people above.
00:18This is the bit the general public don't usually see. Digging down deep, we'll
00:24unearth some of the most extraordinary stories of London's subterranean history, a world of
00:31ancient caves and preserved Roman ruins. And we're now coming into the amphitheatre
00:37itself. We'll discover impenetrable vaults of treasure. I have actually heard people
00:43gasp as they walk in for the first time. Gruesome plague pits and top secret bunkers.
00:50Bunker is designed to be entirely self-sufficient. For those in the know, there really is a
00:57darker side to this city. This is the secret world underneath London.
01:08Modern London is built on layers of history. All you have to do is dig down deep to discover.
01:16Different hiding places used in World War II. Masterpieces of Victorian engineering. Remnants
01:24of the industrial revolution. Millions of medieval bones. Even forgotten underground rivers.
01:33The very first layer of the city was laid down as far back as 50 AD. London was founded
01:48only six or seven years after the Roman invasion of Britain. It was founded on the River Thames.
01:54This was a highway that connected London and Britain to the continent. A few clues to the
02:02original city can still be found on the surface today. Like these remnants of Roman walls in
02:07the heart of London. But other traces have survived which can show us how powerful the city was.
02:14But to see those, we need to go underground.
02:25In 1987, construction workers preparing the foundation for the Guildhall Art Gallery unexpectedly unearthed a piece
02:33of London's past, nearly 2,000 years old. At first, architects have no idea what they found. Archaeologists are equally puzzled.
02:48But when the full structure is exposed, they realize the magnitude of the discovery. This is London's long-lost Roman amphitheatre.
02:57We're now 20 to 30 feet underground. You can see the walls on either side. And we're now coming into the amphitheatre itself.
03:10It is built for entertainment, Roman style. Events are held within its huge circular arena, 200 feet across.
03:22This wasn't the biggest amphitheatre in the Roman Empire. It held 5,000 to 6,000 people.
03:27But that was a quarter of the population of London at the time.
03:32That's the modern equivalent of the entire central London population leaving the streets for one event.
03:42Roman society was very brutal. You can't get away from that. In the army, you were brutalized and you, in turn, were brutal.
03:49It was part of everyday society. But at the same time, you can relate to it.
03:54The celebrities of the day are the gladiators.
03:59Posters will have gone around all around the city for up to two weeks beforehand.
04:04The night before the shows themselves, there was a huge public meal at which the audience could come and watch the gladiators taking part.
04:12So they could see what was going to happen and they could work out who they wanted to bet on.
04:19For those about to come into the arena, it was unimaginable how horrible that must have been.
04:27Among the ruins, archaeologists find a tiny clue that gives a stark insight into the fears of the fighters.
04:33A figurine of Minerva, the goddess of defense.
04:38This may well have been a lucky charm carried by a gladiator as he entered into deadly combat.
04:45But you still got people who wanted to do it. It was a way to make a name for yourself.
04:52Gladiators fight and die in this amphitheatre for more than 250 years.
04:56When the Roman Empire falls, the building is simply lost in time.
05:07More than a thousand years later, everyone in London is at risk from a killer far harder to avoid than a sword.
05:16This city isn't just built on ruins.
05:19It's also built on bones.
05:21Over the centuries, millions of people have lived and died here.
05:33Most visitors to the Museum of London are completely unaware that thousands of those bones are preserved right under their feet.
05:40This is the most phenomenal collection of human remains that have been excavated over many years and reveal the history of London through the people.
06:00Each of these boxes contains the bones of one person.
06:04The numbers are astonishing. There are close to 20,000 of them.
06:08One collection that we have that's of particular significance is an episode of a really terrifying time in London's history.
06:18That time is 1348, when the city is ravaged by a horrific plague.
06:24The Black Death.
06:28No one is safe.
06:29This skeleton is a male that was excavated from the East Smithfield Catastrophe Cemetery and is a plague victim.
06:40And when you look at his skeleton, he looks like a very nice, robust, healthy individual.
06:45But the plague killed him very quickly.
06:47By the 14th century, the centre of London is an overcrowded jumble of streets.
06:54Conditions are probably not as sanitary as we would hope today, so you've got lots of dirt and filth probably accumulating on the streets.
07:04The city is a melting pot for disease.
07:08When the plague strikes, its effects are terrifying.
07:12If you were, unfortunately, to be affected by the plague, you would probably start off by developing a fever because then your body is trying to fight and cope with it.
07:23And then a later stage would be that it then affects in the lymph nodes and you start to get the swelling, so you might get those in the neck, the armpit or the groin.
07:30And they become these swellings that we know as bubobs.
07:34And then that's actually then poisoning your whole system, so you're eventually going to get septicemia blood poisoning.
07:39Unfortunately for most people, ultimately it would be death.
07:43As a disease process, it was something that was very quick and affecting lots of people all in one time.
07:49As the death toll rises, local cemeteries rapidly fill to overflowing.
07:55Bodies are simply left to rot in the streets.
07:57Authorities have to act fast.
08:01The solution is the creation of London's plague pits.
08:05Thousands of corpses are laid carefully side by side.
08:10They were being placed there in a very neat way and they were trying to follow that Christian burial process.
08:18So they weren't just being flung in haphazardly.
08:20Over six centuries later, in 1986, archaeologists excavate the East Smithfield's plague pit, where two and a half thousand victims are buried.
08:34Scattered between the countless rows of men and women are the bodies of children, mercilessly cut down by the unstoppable plague.
08:41It didn't care, really, whether you were young or old, if you were rich or poor.
08:48It's a snapshot of all people of all different ages being affected by one disease process.
08:55Scientists are finally able to investigate this long-hidden mystery.
08:59The way we were able to actually find out the cause of his death was actually by taking a tooth and then being able to sample that to find the causative agent of the plague, the Black Death.
09:12The results confirm what scientists have long suspected.
09:17The culprit is a deadly bacterium that is still alive today.
09:21Yersinia pestis.
09:24Recent outbreaks have been reported in Africa, Asia, even in North America.
09:31The bacteria live in fleas that are carried by rats.
09:35Just one flea bite can infect a human.
09:37Without these bones, we would never have known for certain that a tiny microbe was the cause of such widespread destruction.
09:48By 1350, when the plague finally loosens its grip on the country, over 40% of London's population, 30,000 people, have died.
09:58300 years later, in 1666, the city faces a very different kind of disaster.
10:09The great fire of London tears through the city.
10:1580% of it is burned to ashes.
10:18When the last embers die out, rebuilding is a priority.
10:22Amazingly, the key to the city's future is found deep underneath the sleepy London suburb of Chislehurst.
10:33In this otherwise unremarkable place is a doorway to another world.
10:37A dark and mysterious world.
10:49It's a labyrinthine sprawl of endless, disorienting tunnels.
10:53Reaching down 230 feet below the surface, there are more than 22 miles of them.
11:03These are the Chislehurst Caves.
11:08And for 17th century architects, they are a mecca for one essential resource.
11:14There we have it. Chalk. Seed for chalk.
11:21Chislehurst Cave is made up of nothing but chalk.
11:25Bricks and mortar are the new construction standard for London.
11:30And chalk is a vital ingredient.
11:32Can't have roads, can't have walls without chalk.
11:36After the great fire of London, chalk would have been removed from any unavailable chalk vines.
11:41Chislehurst Caves being the largest in the country, the deeper you go down, the harder it is.
11:48Hard chalk is notoriously brittle.
11:51And that creates problems for miners.
11:54Hit it in the wrong spot.
11:56If there's a pocket behind it, you'll end up with 10 tonnes of chalk coming down right on top of you.
12:02For miners, cave-ins are an ever-present threat.
12:07But London's building demands must be met.
12:11So much chalk is extracted over the years that the caves turn into a giant maze.
12:17It's very easy to get lost down here.
12:20If you were to turn all the lights off, it's pitch black.
12:25In fact, I can show you.
12:27Though there is a total absence of light, the layout of the caves means that sounds are hugely exaggerated.
12:36BOOM!
12:38BOOM!
12:39BOOM!
12:41BOOM!
12:43BOOM!
12:44BOOM!
12:46BOOM!
12:47BOOM!
12:48BOOM!
12:49BOOM!
12:50BOOM!
12:51BOOM!
12:53BOOM!
12:54BOOM!
12:56BOOM!
12:57With 22 miles of tunnel, who knows what might be listening?
13:00Far into the mines there is a natural pool.
13:03Legend has it that a grim discovery was made here decades ago.
13:07They found something at the bottom,
13:09and that something happened to be the skeletal remains of a woman.
13:14Disturbing her bones is thought to have woken her spirit.
13:18A challenge is set for anyone who dares to spend the night alone in the caves.
13:30So, come 1985, Dave Duker and Chris Perry Manning decided
13:35that they'd do the challenge for a charity.
13:40The rules of the challenge say they must sleep separately.
13:46Yeah, thanks, mate.
13:48So, Dave was actually placed right here behind me.
14:01Chris led at the far end of the passage.
14:06Deep in the darkness, the hours passed slowly.
14:15Chris! Chris!
14:18Chris!
14:21Chris!
14:29Dave discovers Chris unconscious.
14:32He's rushed to hospital,
14:33where the doctors find his shoulder severely dislocated and broken.
14:38Chris remembers nothing.
14:42Because of that night,
14:44and him not knowing anything about it, even to this day,
14:47the challenge was called,
14:48though, it's never happened again,
14:50and it never will.
14:53The ghostly Chislehurst caves were excavated using primitive mining techniques.
15:00But 200 years later,
15:01the technical prowess of the Victorians takes underground tunneling to a whole new level.
15:07This is the Thames tunnel.
15:09This is the first tunnel under a river anywhere in the world being used by the oldest underground system in the world.
15:23During the 19th century, the Thames is one of the busiest rivers in the world.
15:28The Port of London receives thousands of ships daily.
15:33They needed to get stuff across the river as well as up and down it.
15:38London Bridge is the only way to cross.
15:42It's constantly gridlocked.
15:43They said in these days it took longer to get stuff across the Thames than it took to get stuff across the Atlantic.
15:52Building another bridge would block ships' access to the docks.
15:58Luckily, there is one man clever enough to solve the problem.
16:01Mark Isambard Brunel is a Frenchman living in America.
16:07His technical skill has raised him up to the office of Chief Engineer of New York.
16:12He was a prolific engineer.
16:16He designed the defences on Staten Island.
16:19He made plans for the first canal in North America from Lake Champlain up to the River Hudson,
16:26which is a bit of real prospecting.
16:27In 1799, he arrives in England to face his greatest challenge.
16:33The world's first tunnel under a river.
16:37The big challenge for anyone building a tunnel under this river is the composition of the soil.
16:43South of the river and under the river, it's sand and gravel and sludge.
16:47It's the worst possible material to dig through.
16:51And the ever-present danger was caving and collapse.
16:57Brunel's plan is audacious.
17:00He designs what many believe is one of the finest pieces of Victorian engineering.
17:09This is Brunel's brilliant idea.
17:11How do you dig tunnels under rivers through soft earth?
17:14And it's a cage.
17:16Brunel plans to prop the cage up against the tunnel face,
17:20giving support to the soft tunnel walls,
17:22while allowing workers to excavate earth from under the riverbed.
17:26As earth is removed, the cage would be edged forwards on screw jacks.
17:31And as they push the cages forwards, bricklayers working behind them build the walls of the tunnel.
17:39In this painstaking manner, the tunnel could be built inch by inch.
17:46But before they can start building it, they have to get down below the riverbed.
17:51So, this is the bit the general public don't usually see.
17:58This is the secret entrance to the underground chamber,
18:03which has been opened up again for the first time in 150 years.
18:08In another of Brunel's engineering firsts,
18:20he begins by building this 50-foot-deep, 1,000-ton brick cylinder above ground.
18:28Then, instead of lowering it into a pre-dug hole,
18:32Brunel relies on the laws of gravity.
18:34It's like a huge pastry cutter,
18:39because it sunk under its own weight into the soft earth.
18:44This is the world's first caisson.
18:49It's been done all over the world ever since.
18:52If Brunel did nothing else, this would have been significant enough.
18:58Mark Brunel's son Isambard is enlisted to oversee the project.
19:01With the cage in place, tunneling begins in 1825.
19:06The challenge proves far greater than the Brunel's could ever have imagined.
19:12The men working here worked in the most appalling conditions.
19:18The tunnel is 14 feet below the river.
19:21There are constant leaks.
19:22They were showered in the small cages by Thames water.
19:29In 1825, the Thames is the biggest open sewer in the world.
19:35They're not just dodging sewage, they're dodging flames,
19:39because the methane in the tunnel is ignited by the oil lamps that help them see their work.
19:50They only work two-hour shifts, however.
19:53After two hours, they collapse.
19:57And they're carried out and replaced by men who are still breathing.
20:00This is the worst job in the world.
20:05Before long, the inevitable happens.
20:09In January 1828, six men drowned in here.
20:13The river broke into the workings, filled the tunnel and filled this chamber.
20:23Two men reached the staircase, but the force of the water was so great,
20:29it tore them off the stairs and sucked them down below where we're standing,
20:35into the tunnel and to their deaths.
20:37The tragedy does not deter the Brunelles.
20:45Isambard devises an ingenious way to restore public faith in the project.
20:50In November 1827, the great and the good dined beneath the river Thames,
20:57off silver platter and from crystal glass.
21:01If it's safe enough to have a dinner party down there,
21:04it's safe enough for potential investors to take up a second subscription of shares
21:10and give the Brunelles the money to resume the work.
21:17This is very classy fundraising.
21:23In 1843, 18 years after building began, the tunnel is complete.
21:29It's a huge success.
21:30Billed as the eighth wonder of the world, 50,000 people use the tunnel on the first day.
21:37The Brunelles went through hell and high water to build this tunnel.
21:41It was a project that Brunelles thought would be finished in three years.
21:45It took 18 years.
21:47Men grew old and died building this tunnel.
21:49A lesser person would have given up.
21:52This is not only a testament to Brunelles engineering skills.
21:57It's a testament to his stubborn, gritty determination.
22:02This is an act of will as well as an act of engineering.
22:06Mark Brunelles' incredible tunnel under the Thames is used as a pedestrian crossing until 1865,
22:13when it becomes part of London's railway network.
22:17But it's by no means the last great challenge of the Victorian age.
22:22In the old industrial district of Clerkenwell, there is a tiny clue to one of London's biggest secrets.
22:29In the busy city streets, this simple drain cover is easy to miss.
22:36If you listen closely, you can hear a rushing sound.
22:39And that rushing sound is the sound of water.
22:42And the water here offers a clue to London's past and what lies underneath our streets.
22:48There's only one way to solve this mystery.
22:54We need to go underground.
22:5720 feet down below the busy streets.
23:01To the source of the rushing sound.
23:06This is one of London's great lost rivers.
23:10The Fleet.
23:11OK, Tom, right, we're in the Fleet. We're just going to go up this way, upstream.
23:16Great, yes, sir.
23:21This river hasn't always been buried underground.
23:26During the 19th century, it's a major highway for transporting goods.
23:32The River Fleet used to be an important part of the way London worked.
23:37Boats would come up here, barges would unload on this river.
23:41And they would unload things like the stones that built the old St Paul's Cathedral.
23:46They would unload coal, they'd unload cheese, they'd unload produce for the city.
23:51The Fleet gives clear access from the north of London all the way to the Thames.
24:00But the city's use of the river takes its toll.
24:04Slaughterhouses and tanneries along its route are continually throwing their waste into the water, unchecked.
24:11The River Fleet was notoriously polluted.
24:14It was an incredibly filthy river.
24:16All of London's sewage, its waste, was coming down here.
24:20Even bodies were said to float down the fleet every day.
24:24The only way to make the river safe is to entomb it underground.
24:29By 1870, it is completely covered over.
24:34So there's only a skin of brick and road surface between us and hordes of people going about their everyday business, doing the things that everyone does in the city.
24:42And the Fleet is far from being London's only buried waterway.
24:49The rivers that are out there have amazing evocative names.
24:53They're called things like the Afra, the Neckinger, the Corken, the Qing, the Moselle, the Mutternbrook.
24:58But in most cases, they've been completely or partly lost over the last 150 years.
25:04And to find them, you have to go underground and look inside the tunnels where they still flow.
25:10As the Great River Fleet is hidden away, yet another piece of Victorian engineering opens up a brand new world under London.
25:19Commonly known as the Tube, the London Underground is the lifeblood of the capital, transporting over a billion people every year.
25:35It all starts with just one line, the Metropolitan.
25:42During the 19th century, railways bring nearly 30,000 workers into London stations every day.
25:49But what's badly needed is a way to transport them quickly into the very heart of the city.
25:55One man started to come up with the idea of actually putting the railway in a trench beneath the city streets.
26:01Charles Pearson, a London lawyer, is at first ridiculed for his proposal.
26:06Pearson struggled for many years to convince people of not only the need for the Metropolitan Railway,
26:12but then to give him the parliamentary power and the finance to build it.
26:16This was, after all, a private railway.
26:17To the dismay of many, his plans are finally granted in 1854 as the only hope to ease congestion.
26:26Building the world's first underground railway causes chaos.
26:29The construction technique is called cut-and-cover.
26:39The busy streets are blocked off and trenches dug by armies of workers bringing the city to a standstill.
26:46Train tracks are laid and the trenches covered over, enclosing the railway below.
26:51Slum properties in the way of the new line are ruthlessly demolished.
26:5612,000 people are made homeless.
27:00Wealthy residents are horrified by the resulting unsightly gaps in streets.
27:05So designers come up with some architectural trickery.
27:07This seemingly normal townhouse is actually a facade built to hide the gap and the railway behind.
27:16In January 1863, in spite of people who said it couldn't be done, the Metropolitan Railway opens for business.
27:26It is powered by steam engines which fill the tunnels with smoke.
27:33There were always issues about the atmosphere in the underground being smoky, steamy, sulphurous.
27:42Even on the opening week of service, a couple of railwaymen had to be taken to hospital with asphyxiation.
27:49By the late 19th century, 580 trains a day are using the original section.
27:54That's a steam engine every, kind of, two or three minutes.
27:57So you can imagine then that it would have been pretty thick.
28:01Despite the choking conditions, people flock to the underground.
28:06The Metropolitan Railway was really a great success from the very start,
28:10exceeding expectations in terms of the numbers of passengers,
28:14because, of course, it did important jobs.
28:17It moved people from railway terminals, such as here at Paddington, into the city,
28:20and it helped people move round London instead of using the congested streets above ground.
28:29By the early 20th century, several more lines are built.
28:33This rapid growth makes navigating the tube very difficult,
28:37and the underground map has become a complicated jumble of lines and stations.
28:42Harry Beck, an engineering draftsman, has a genius idea.
28:46Instead of being geographically accurate, he takes inspiration from an electrical circuit drawing.
28:52The map is laid out in simple, direct lines.
28:58Using Beck's system, passengers only need to know three things.
29:03The start point of their journey,
29:07where they have to change lines,
29:10and their destination.
29:11His design is so groundbreaking that it becomes as famous as the city itself.
29:18It just moved away all the other maps that had ever been designed,
29:21because it worked better.
29:23It's part of that pride about being a Londoner is actually,
29:26you know your way around the city without actually having to look at the map,
29:29because it's just so well kind of imprinted in your brain.
29:32London relies on its underground to keep the city moving.
29:39But there was a time when it was needed for much more.
29:49In the heart of London sits one of the city's disused stations.
29:53Aldwych.
30:02Opened in 1907 as a single station offshoot of the Piccadilly Line,
30:06it was never particularly busy.
30:10When the elevators broke down,
30:12the cost to repair them was too great to justify.
30:15The station is abandoned in 1994.
30:19However, back in 1940,
30:23this place plays a hugely important role for Londoners.
30:27During the Blitz,
30:29the horrific Nazi bombing campaign of World War II,
30:33Aldwych becomes one of London's great public air raid shelters.
30:36The tube station, of course, afforded the best and safest place.
30:44So people felt quite easy at leaving their home,
30:47even if this was a very strange environment.
30:52Each night, anxious Londoners descend 90 feet down to the platforms.
30:56Every attempt is made to keep people's spirits up.
31:07Singing and games are a regular pastime.
31:10Christmas is celebrated wholeheartedly.
31:12There is even a refreshment special,
31:15a train that runs selling cakes, pies and, of course, tea.
31:20As the last regular service passes through,
31:23stations take on a very different atmosphere.
31:26At that point, the station became a lot calmer, of course, and quieter,
31:30and that's when people really started to bed down for the night.
31:36Every inch of the platform is used.
31:39Makeshift hammocks are hung across the tracks.
31:42But there's no escaping the horror of what is going on above.
31:52Even deep underground, people can hear the bomb strikes.
31:57Down here in the deep tube tunnel overnight,
32:01you weren't certain what you were going back up to in the morning.
32:04You know, the landscape of London changed overnight.
32:07You didn't know if your home was still going to be there.
32:08So I think there was a great degree of tension.
32:12Terrified by the endless pounding of bombs,
32:16no-one pays attention to a door at the end of the platform.
32:22On the other side is one of London's deepest secrets.
32:29A hidden tunnel.
32:31It's the perfect place to hide something precious.
32:35This area of the track that had been abandoned in 1915,
32:40that was used during the Second World War
32:42for storage of famous artefacts from the British Museum.
32:45Most valuable of all
32:48are the two-and-a-half-thousand-year-old Parthenon sculptures.
32:52These priceless pieces
32:55are among the finest example of Greek classical art in the world.
32:58War meant that they couldn't continue here safely,
33:03so they were dismantled,
33:05and gradually they were all transferred
33:08to the deepest, nearest underground station,
33:12the Aldrich 2.
33:13Moving a hundred tons of ancient marble deep below ground
33:24is a precarious operation.
33:26It's very tricky because the condition of the sculptures
33:30after 2,000-plus years was already very volatile.
33:33It was a real logistical feat,
33:38taking very precious, delicate sculptures
33:41and bringing them here to a safe resting place
33:43deep under central London.
33:45The sculptures remain underground for ten years,
33:49untouched by the war above.
33:55With German bombs laying waste to the city,
33:57the British Prime Minister is holed up in Westminster.
34:01Just 100 yards from his home in Downing Street,
34:05Churchill has a top-secret bunker 12 feet below ground.
34:10These Churchill war rooms were designed
34:13as an emergency working refuge for the war cabinet.
34:16They've sat here, frozen in time,
34:19since the end of World War II.
34:22In the 1970s, they were entrusted to the care
34:26of the Imperial War Museum.
34:29This is really what we found when we came in here
34:32in the late 70s.
34:34These are the chairs, the tables, the maps.
34:37The blotters, in a sense, are not original
34:40because they would burn the blotters at the end of each meeting
34:43in case you'd left an impression of something secret on them.
34:46So these are the blotters for the next meeting
34:48that never happened because there was no need to have it.
34:51The Prime Minister's decision to remain in the city
34:54is typically bold.
34:56His enemies never guess that Churchill is so close to home.
35:01If you were Hitler, you know, you wouldn't think,
35:04where's Churchill?
35:06I don't know, 12 feet underground in a storage basement,
35:09100 yards from his house? No way.
35:11You would think, like Hitler, like Mussolini, like Stalin,
35:15180 feet below ground on a concrete and ballast.
35:18Our man, converted basement 12 feet below ground.
35:22The site is a safely guarded secret.
35:25Only staff and top government officials even know it exists.
35:29Well, Churchill would sit in the seat here,
35:33and he'd have on his left the leader of the opposition,
35:37since it was a coalition.
35:38And on his right, where I'm sitting, you'd have the War Cabinet Minister.
35:43He's got the Chiefs of Staff offices at him.
35:45He never seemed to be going fast enough and doing things
35:48the way he wants them done.
35:50The only reason he's down here is because they're bumming the hell out of his city.
35:53So it would have been fairly scary, I think.
35:56Whatever you think of the apparent fortifications of this place, it was very prone.
36:02Any bombs landing nearby could easily have come through here at any point.
36:06With the fate of Europe hanging in the balance, the tension is unrelenting.
36:13It's a very cramped room, so you feel fairly claustrophobic.
36:16And the intensity that Churchill felt is really exemplified by what you see here when you look at the chair.
36:25And here, you have a dent in the chair where he hammered it with his signet ring that he wore on that finger.
36:31And on the other side, an even deeper dent, incredibly made by his fingernails.
36:36Churchill keeps an eagle eye on every aspect of the war.
36:43Up-to-date information is of vital importance.
36:47This is where they would track all military operations throughout the war.
36:52Round this table, you'd have one each of the Army, Navy and Air Force, 24-7.
36:57And these guys would have had it all absolutely as Churchill would have wanted it.
37:02This was his principal map room.
37:03This is where you would come in and expect to see, at a glance, what was going on in the war.
37:10Brightly-coloured telephones sit waiting, their ringers silent since 1945.
37:18Maps line every wall.
37:20Thousands of tiny holes detail the precision with which the war is followed.
37:27The most disturbing map in the room is this convoy map.
37:33Each one of those pinpricks basically represents a whole convoy.
37:38Each convoy could be as much as 40 ships.
37:40Each convoy could be tens of thousands of men.
37:43German U-boats prowl the Atlantic, picking off Allied ships at will.
37:49Your life expectancy in one of those ships was very low.
37:55It's estimated that 35,000 mariners died at sea.
37:59And that piece of water is one absolutely massive graveyard.
38:03So great is the need for confidentiality during the war, that some places are hidden from even the highest officials.
38:18Cunningly disguised as a restroom, this is a secret within a secret.
38:24This is the original hotline.
38:28This is the direct connection between the American President and the British Prime Minister.
38:34The discussions held in this room are pivotal to winning the war.
38:38But the Allied leaders still like to assert their authority with one another.
38:46Churchill wouldn't come on the line until Roosevelt was on the line.
38:50Roosevelt wouldn't come on the line until Churchill was on the line.
38:54Churchill uses this bunker in central London throughout the war years.
38:57But this is not his only underground hiding place.
39:05In the quiet suburb of Dulles Hill hides one of London's greatest World War II secrets.
39:19Even today, the exact location of its entrance cannot be revealed.
39:27Rusting equipment gives a clue to this place's original function.
39:33This piece of old bent metal, that's an original telephone exchange from 1939.
39:42On the very back here, we've got all the wiring points.
39:47ZDHTS teleprinter circuits.
39:50Here we see a wiring frame.
39:51And here we have the most important one of them all.
39:55With the label marked CWR.
39:58Cabinet War Room.
40:00The link to the main Cabinet War Rooms down at Storys Gate in London.
40:03This site, codenamed Paddock,
40:06is the Prime Minister's classified backup bunker.
40:10If the main war rooms are destroyed, the free world is at grave risk.
40:14Paddock is designed to rehouse Churchill's Cabinet,
40:17should the Luftwaffe land that grievous blow.
40:23They started digging the hole in 1938 to build this bunker.
40:28It took them just over 13 months.
40:31Cost 250,000 pounds in those days.
40:34That's an enormous amount of money.
40:35The bunker is covered with a giant concrete slab five feet thick,
40:40laid over with 17,000 tonnes of gravel.
40:46The massive protection ensures that even a direct hit from a German 500-pound bomb
40:51would not penetrate to the vital rooms 40 feet below the surface.
40:56And it is built in complete secrecy.
41:00Essentially what we've got is a two-storey office block sunk under the ground,
41:04rooms off on either side, now totally dilapidated.
41:08Paddock is state-of-the-art, fitted with the latest technology.
41:13The bunker was designed to be entirely self-sufficient.
41:17Had the worst come to the worst and the power had been lost from the grid,
41:21they could have just started the generator, had electricity in a few seconds.
41:25Staffed 24-7, the bunker is ready to spring into action at the drop of a hat,
41:31or a bomb.
41:38It is laid out, of course, to the Prime Minister's specifications.
41:44And it's in here, through this double-door arrangement,
41:47there was the map room.
41:48There would have been maps across the wall and a huge table here in the middle.
41:52Here we had the three rooms for the armed forces.
41:57One for the army, one for the admiralty, and a final one for the air force.
42:04Each has their own unit, allowing them to follow progress in the map room.
42:09Privacy is vital in case there is a mole in the building.
42:12And this is the most important room in the bunker, I suppose.
42:23This is the Cabinet War Room.
42:25Whilst Churchill held a War Cabinet meeting here in October 1940,
42:29he absolutely hated it.
42:31A most dismal place, as he described it in his memoirs.
42:34By the end of the war, Cabinet has met here only twice.
42:39With the cost of construction,
42:42that's the modern equivalent of more than $20 million a meeting.
42:471945 signals the end for Nazi Germany,
42:51and the need for the Allied secret bunkers.
42:54Locked away from the world, Paddock falls into complete decay.
42:59All these years on, this bunker is still here,
43:02and it pays testament to the engineers that built it,
43:05and it's such an important part of British history.
43:08This is the secret world underneath London.
43:15Despite the damage caused to the city during the war,
43:18the Allied victory ushers in a time of great prosperity in London.
43:22In 1953, one of the most valuable properties in London is established.
43:36A basement worth more than the most exclusive penthouse.
43:43Once inside, it's a spectacular sight.
43:46These are the London silver vaults.
44:01Stashed away in these impenetrable vaults,
44:04is the largest collection of retail silver on Earth.
44:06In room after room, as far as the eye can see,
44:16glittering, sparkling silver.
44:19I have actually heard people gasp as they walk in for the first time,
44:29and walk down the corridors,
44:30and see the truly enormous expanse of silverware.
44:34It is an amazing place.
44:36The silver vaults were originally used for storage.
44:40Local dealers needed somewhere central and secure.
44:44Then customers of ours began to come down here,
44:49and this whole place sort of evolved
44:52into this huge shopping area for silverware.
44:58This fully subterranean site occupies roughly the same size as a soccer field.
45:03The collection's variety is truly astounding.
45:07If you're looking for a silver item, chances are you'll find it here,
45:10no matter how unusual.
45:14The most outlandish thing I've ever seen
45:17was a solid silver four-poster bed,
45:21and I couldn't believe my eyes.
45:23The vaults are so remarkable that they attract all sorts of clientele,
45:28including the world of show business.
45:31From the stars of yesterday...
45:34Rock Hudson is a famous one.
45:37The Dallas stars, you know, they're still remembered.
45:39You know, Larry Hagman himself came down.
45:42To the prop buyers for popular television dramas of today.
45:46Downton Abbey, they decided to actually buy silver from ourselves rather than rent it.
45:53Everything that you see on the Downton set came from here, came from us, our family.
45:59For one virtuoso performer, this place was one giant candy store.
46:03A particular purchase from the Langford family vault was to become his signature piece.
46:10Liberace came down and bought silver candelabra.
46:14Every visit to London, he would come back and visit Mrs Langford and send her Christmas cards.
46:20The flamboyant pianist was naturally charmed by the silver vaults.
46:27Its location certainly makes it one of London's most unusual shopping destinations.
46:32The fact that the London silver vaults are two floors underground is quite an unusual and quirky idea.
46:38I actually love it. This is more like a hobby for me.
46:42And the fact that I'm earning money while I'm doing my hobby, it's a great experience.
46:47Twenty years after the vaults were founded, London's underground is excavated once again.
46:52This time, it's to store a very different collection of treasures.
46:59In 1973, the British Library is established as one of the largest libraries in the world.
47:07Within its care are the private collections of King George III and two of the four existing copies of the Magna Carta.
47:14Hidden out of sight is the library's full collection of over 150 million items.
47:24The visitors may be unaware that they're sitting on top of a giant book depository.
47:34The collections are stored in five huge subterranean floors, extending over 80 feet underground.
47:41We're in basement three at the moment, and it's about 60 foot deep.
47:46In certain spots in the basement, you can actually hear the underground passing you.
47:50I think the circle line's about six metres away at some point.
47:55These basements are a book lover's idea of heaven.
47:59If a person could read five books a day, it would take 80,000 years to finish the collection.
48:05The books are given a catalogue identification, a unique alphanumeric sequence where they're held on the shelf.
48:15We then make those available to our customers, be it readers in the reading room or external customers.
48:22On an average, we're doing about 3,000 requests a day retrieving those books.
48:27The operation's pretty massive.
48:29When a reader wants a book, they can get access to the collection online.
48:33You go onto the online catalogue, find the item that you want, submit the order for the date you actually want it.
48:40That then generates an order in the storage area where the book belongs.
48:45The staff respond to that order by going to get the book off the shelf.
48:49Finding the right book can involve a lot of walking.
48:52There are nearly 400 miles of shelves, with seven more miles added every year.
48:57If a book's put back in the wrong place, it can take an incredibly long amount of time to find it.
49:09When the correct book is found, the last step is poetry in motion.
49:13This is the mechanical book handling system where we actually send the books up to the reading room.
49:19The book's put in the box, encrypted with the address that it needs to go to.
49:23It enables us to send books to the reading room efficiently and quickly.
49:32A book's journey from the storage basements 80 feet below takes five minutes.
49:37If you are overseas, you can order a book to arrive in a reading room four, five, six weeks' time, time you visit to come inside with that book being available for you.
49:50Another happy customer.
50:00As the densely packed capital city continues to grow and develop, the world underneath it becomes more important than ever before.
50:10For one of London's most established institutions, the underground is absolutely vital for the future.
50:18As the first national public museum in the world, the British Museum now attracts over six million people every year.
50:28They come to marvel at the wonders of human civilization.
50:33But not all of the museum's items are on display.
50:38Packed into storage areas below the museum are over 200,000 artifacts from every corner of the globe.
50:48As the collection is constantly growing, so too must the museum.
51:01In 2010, construction company Mace begins work on the largest site development in the museum's 260-year history.
51:08To maximize the potential of this relatively small piece of land, a radical plan is put in place.
51:17Well, the museum was really running out of space to go sideways, so going down was really the only option.
51:21Work begins on building four new floors underground.
51:26That means digging down to 120 feet.
51:31Key challenges within going down into a deep basement is obviously getting the spoil away.
51:36And we had to take out 4,369 lorries worth.
51:41That's the equivalent of removing 15 Olympic-sized swimming pools of mud.
51:46Digging out and construction has to be done with the utmost care.
51:51Many buildings surrounding the museum are more than 300 years old.
51:58There are important buildings, Georgian Terrace houses that back onto the site.
52:02They come within 15 meters of the building and even closer in some parts of the excavation.
52:07And in places, the original walls of the museum itself are agonizingly close.
52:19On the other side of them are some of the world's greatest treasures.
52:26Many of the objects are very fragile.
52:28We had to ensure that the methods of work weren't creating large amounts of vibration
52:33that were then going to put the objects at risk.
52:35We basically, on a daily basis, monitored the elevations of the existing buildings
52:41to alert us if there's any movement in them.
52:44Their vigilance is paying off.
52:47And most visitors to the museum are completely unaware that anything is being built.
52:52We've been on site for three years and to close the museum for that length of time
52:58would have been pretty damaging for the museum.
53:00And in fact, we haven't had to close any of the galleries.
53:03Building down under London's surface will bring a new lease of life to the British Museum.
53:10As soon as you walk through the gate and you start to walk around the building,
53:14you suddenly realise just how big a site this is.
53:17The new levels of extra research, exhibition and storage space
53:21will be the foundation for the museum's next 260 years.
53:24It's not often you get the chance to build something for one of the oldest museums in the world.
53:30And we're leaving a legacy here that will be here for generations.
53:35London has many well-kept secrets and we're adding another one here by building this building underground.
53:39This ambitious construction project is not just the next chapter in the museum's story.
53:46It's also the newest of hundreds of underground layers that make up the 2,000 years of this rich and vibrant city.
53:54Over that time, London has been shaped by innovations, victories and tragedies.
54:07And each has left its own secret trace, hidden deep underground.
54:12aufgeidden region
54:13vienen for decades.
54:14Deep underground.
54:15viene
54:19And a deep underground.
54:20This is the sameing Fund.
54:21чender
54:25Allë
54:30Mars
54:34The