Aldwych Station – A Warning

I was lucky enough to visit Aldwych Station this morning with Mike Paterson of London Historians fame and a fellow member Peter Stone. The very best of company, a place I had wanted to visit for ages but it was a tour that really didn’t do the station justice.

The disused station is currently open to visitors willing to pay £20 a ticket to the London Transport Museum. Enclosed with the tickets comes an A4 sheet covering the Health and Safety of the trip: no open-toed sandals, stout walking shoes preferred, 160 steps, no lift, no Digital SLR cameras, that sort of thing, fair enough.

As around 70 of us gathered outside the station, our bags were searched, we were told this was to ensure that none of us had brought any Digital SLR cameras. We hadn’t, so inside the station we went. Within the old booking hall were two signs informing us that we should not bring in any Digital SLR cameras.

Then were given a Health & Safety talk. Not a proper welcome but just a “housekeeping” and H&S talk. The leaflet we had already received was pretty much repeated. We were told about the 160 steps that led down to the platforms and, seriously, we were also told about the 160 steps that would lead us back up! The 160 became something of a mantra, one would have thought we were about to descend to the bowels of the earth.

We were advised how to use the spiral stairs, apparently if we descended on the right hand side where the stairs are at their broadest things would go well for us. On our return we should use the left hand side, this would now be the broader portion of the stairs. In both directions we should hold onto the hand-rail, just in case somebody above us toppled and sent all beneath careering down the 160 steps. We were told not to walk on the tracks. At the end of this dreary talk we were once again warned not to take Digital SLR cameras with us.There were only four points in the tour when any information was given to us, this was the longest.

We were split into two groups of 35. Our guides, two of them just for H&S,  then took us to the top of the stairs and informed us that we would now be walking down 160 steps. We did this, effortlessly. At the bottom we were shown into a tunnel and were warned about ensuing trip hazards. A few yards later we reached the top of the short, uncounted, flight of stairs leading down to the Eastern platform. Fortunately there were two signs informing us that we were not permitted to take Digital SLR cameras beyond this point.

And so onto the platform, this is what we had come for, a chance to soak up the atmosphere and ambience of the place. No, “Can you move along the platform please, there’s going to be a little talk.” “Can you move along the platform please, there’s going to be a little talk.” “Can you move along the platform please, there’s going to be a little talk.” Our two H&S guides in high-vis jackets and toting super-duper underground radios, repeatedly chimed this phrase like bells, overlapping with each other, competing for stridency. Some of us were fairly compliant and shuffled grudgingly past some interesting 1970′s posters and unusual bits of tiling, towards a man at the far end of the platform, others took longer. Eventually we were all together and the little talk could begin.

The talk was short, war-time sheltering, the storage of the Elgin marbles, platform closed 1917, don’t walk on the track. Then we were free to walk along the platform we had wanted to walk along before. Why hadn’t the volunteer guide met us at the entrance to the platform and done his talk there? Time had been wasted.

Anyway, next we went to see some lift shafts, we retraced our steps and were warned about precisely the same trip hazards that we had managed to negotiate 5 minutes previously. Then onto the Western platform. At the top of the short, again uncounted, flight of stairs leading down to the Western platform were two signs informing us that we were not permitted to take Digital SLR cameras beyond this point.

Again the bells rang out  “Can you move along the platform please, there’s going to be a little talk.”. Another guide was waiting for us at the far end of the platform. This time we moved less grudgingly to meet him, we knew the form by now, we would have a chance to really look around properly when he had finished speaking, we were wrong.

We had another short presentation, closed 1994, shuttle service to Holborn, filming and then the unusual tiling from the previous platform was explained, thanks, nice timing.

Right, now we would be free to have a look. But no, there was another guide at the other end of the platform. “Can you move along the platform please, there’s going to be a little talk.” Bah.

Next talk, the meaning of “Strand”, “Aldwych”, a bit of background, in effect a competent introduction being offered as conclusion.

Then it was time to go. Leaving was handled with the urgency of an emergency evacuation. No there would not be time for one more photo even one taken on our suitably compact cameras. Group 1, our group, was to make the ascent first, we passed group 2  waiting patiently for us to do so by the lift shafts, why couldn’t they have simply begun walking first? As we reached the foot of the stairs we were again reminded of their number and advised to proceed on their left hand side.

A few moments later we had all managed to tackle the stairs. None of us was out of breath, not even me and I neck a healthy 40 cigarettes a day and not mere King-size but Superkings, sometimes with rollies in-between as “snacks”!

Then it was time to go. What a disappointing experience it had been. I can’t blame any individual member of staff, they were all polite but the system they were working to conspired to produce a dreadful tour.

The Health & Safety warnings could have been designed to cause alarm, like staff at the London Dungeon trying to hype the show to come. Instead they just came across as utterly bland, repetitive and absurdly risk-averse.

The bloody 160 steps were managed so easily that I cannot take any personal pride in accomplishing this extraordinary feat.

Being told about the Digital SLR ban was so tedious, patronising and illogical that I am determined that if I ever visit again I will smuggle one in just to see what happens.

But the biggest opportunity that London Transport Museum wasted was the deployment of their guides, not their largely superfluous and supernumerary, overbearing, hectoring, high-vis staff but their volunteer transport buffs.

Their volunteer staff are their greatest asset. Knowledgeable, enthusiastic people keen to talk about a subject they love. A little guiding training might come in useful but you can’t really fault them. Why not let each of them do the whole tour? That way the introduction could always be at the beginning, the repetition would be reduced and the things of interest in each area could be talked about at the appropriate point. If the patronising H&S talk was cut the volunteer guides might even have had time to mention the architect of the station (Leslie Green) and expand upon the subject they love.

I have seen LTM volunteer guides in action at Acton and that is what they do there. At Aldwych, their bizarre positions at the far end of platforms, as static guides, really ruined any chance of continuity and didn’t allow any one of them to get into the flow of their talk or develop any rapport with their audience.

I am glad to have ticked off Aldwych Station as another “difficult to see” London site, but it really wasn’t worth £20. You do get free admission to the LTM with your ticket but I have been many times before and I think the vast majority of people on the tour had done so too. We were all London nerds, transport nerds, or both, we would have done wouldn’t we?

The people who organise tours of Big Ben, handle far more stairs (334), more people, more varieties of camera, bigger security implications, with fewer staff and much less signage, they do so deftly, in a welcoming fashion and far more competently. LTM staff should write to their MPs for (free) tickets and see how it should be done.

Oh, I nearly forgot, when we were having our bags searched Peter asked for the LTM definition of a Digital SLR camera. “Any camera with bits that come off” was the answer, so now you know.

Update: You can read Mike’s, perhaps more balanced, view of the day here and he got some photos! Ian Visits also has an excellent write up of the day and links to earlier visits and the history of the station along with more photos here. Londonist have some more links, including some great video footage of the station when it was still working.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout London, see tabs for details.