INTRODUCTION
Any city of six and a half million people is bound to be a very public place. But London also has its private side, a part that is deliberately kept covered up against prying eyes, or that is simply invisible because it is behind the scenes in some way. It's this private, this secret, side of London that is explored in this book.
In a place as big, as old and as multifaceted as London there are naturally many things that can be described as secret in one way or another. On the one hand there are things that are purposefully concealed, such as the locations of our secret service headquarters or the identities of publicityshy aristocratic landowners. On the other hand there are things that are secret simply because the vast majority of people do not know about them. Here one might mention the natural landscape buried beneath London'S streets and the true stories behind Dick Whittington and Marble Arch.
In uncovering these and other facets of secret London, my aim has been to penetrate as far as possible to the very heart of the city. One way I have tried to do this is by creating 20 miles of walks, revealing, among other things, the winding courses of three long-buried rivers. My other method has been to seek out new and unusual places to visit. Altogether, the book contains details of about 30 such places, including a roof garden in Kensington and a bell foundry in the East End.
In security-conscious Whitehall and Westminster I inevitably had less luck in pushing back the frontiers of public accessibility. However, I have at least been able to include in the book first-hand descriptions of some of the more historic government offices. I describe what goes on backstage in the Houses of Parliament and reveal how many people live there.
The one part of secret London I have not been able to explore is the extensive network of tunnels, sewers and abandoned tube stations that honeycombs the cold clay beneath the city's streets. However, by combining other researchers' findings with my own observations, I have been able to draw what I hope is a fairly complete outline of the subterranean city.
HIDDEN LANDSCAPE
Beneath the streets of London lies a hidden landscape. Over the centuries it has been built on, covered up and generally obscured, but it is still very much in existence. Few Londoners are probably aware of it, even though it dictates things that affect their everyday lives, such as the layout of roads and streets, the position of important buildings and the routes of railways and canals, as well as less tangible things like boundaries and place names.
There's something about living in a city that seems to blind people to obvious geographical features that stand out in the countryside. Perhaps we just don't think about hills and valleys and streams when all we can see are endless vistas of bricks and mortar and tarmac. Travel is another factor: it is only when you provide your own motive power that you really become aware of ups and downs. That's why cyclists are usually the only ones who know where the ground rises and where it falls. But even they might find it difficult to say how the apparently unrelated humps and troughs on their regular routes fit into London's overall physical geography.
THE THAMES VALLEY
London's main geographical feature is of course the river valley in which it sits. The Thames valley is about 10 miles (16 kilometres) wide and 400 feet (120 metres) deep. One of the best places to see this is from Parliament Hill (319 feet; 97 metres) on Hampstead Heath.
It takes 20 minutes to walk there from Hampstead Underground Station (Northern Line) and the route is as follows. Thrn left out of Hampstead Station and take the first left into Flask Walk. Follow the road (at first pedestrian only) down and to the right as far as the crossroads. Burgh House, Hampstead's community centre and local history museum, is on the left. Thrn right into Willow Road and follow it down the hill to the junction with Downshire Hill. Here turn left, cross the main road and enter Hampstead Heath. Walk along the tarmac path with one of the Hampstead ponds - a source of the River Fleet (see page 37) - on your right. "When you come to a track crossing left and right, go left and follow this main track round to the right between two more ponds. On the far side, follow the path up the hill, bending slightly right then left. "When you come to a fork, go right (where it says 'No Cycling'). Soon you come out of the trees and, a minute later, reach the top of the hill.
