![]() ![]() Throughout the centuries, a fair proportion of London has consisted of underground chambers and tunnels, with extensive catacombs in Camden Town, and prehistoric tunnels under Greenwich Park. Only a few thousand years ago, the wandering people of Europe lived in or beside the entrances to caves.Īll these have their parallels in London, past and present. Classical writers such as Plato and Homer described the underground worlds as places of dream and hallucination. ![]() The lower depths of anywhere, from ancient cultures to the present, have always been connected with superstition and legend. In the first chapter, he introduces the strange twilight world of darkness long associated with anything subterranean. Underneath the city is a world of its own, of springs, streams, Roman amphitheatres, Victorian sewers, gang hideouts, the creatures which have dwelt in its darkness from rats and eels to monsters and hosts, and last but not least the modern Underground railway system. ![]() As a kind of adjunct to his mammoth work on the city, here we have a comparatively slender tome on one specific aspect. Peter Ackroyd is already well-known as a historian of London. Summary: A concise account of London underneath the surface, exploring the world of its springs, streams, sewers, tunnels and above all the Underground railway system. ![]()
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