Churchill's Lost Labyrinth

Ronan Thomas is down in the tube station at midday

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Winston Churchill called it “the burrow”. Hidden 72ft beneath the well-heeled streets of Mayfair, unknown to most Londoners, is a spellbinding site of British history. Britain's wartime leader was a frequent visitor to its underground facilities at the height of the blitz.

Churchill's burrow (or “barn” as he also called it) is the disused Down Street Underground station, just off Piccadilly. Opened by the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway in 1907, on the new Piccadilly line, it had a short working life and closed in 1932. It was reclaimed as emergency government offices in 1939, just before the outbreak of World War Two. What's more, Down Street sheltered Churchill on eight occasions – from October to December 1940 – as German bombs fell across London.

Down Street was designed by renowned Edwardian architect Leslie Green. It was built to Green's signature art nouveau design – attractive oxblood glazed tile facades and half-moon windows – incorporated into 50 stations across the tube. But, from the start, Down Street was blighted. It was awkwardly sited, in a side street off Piccadilly rather than facing it. It was easy to miss. It was also not popular among local residents, who complained it lowered the tone of their affluent neighbourhood. Passenger numbers were never high and, after 1918, the station closed on Sundays. By the early 1930s, Down Street had become underused and uneconomic. After escalators were installed in the nearby, more popular Dover Street (now Green Park) and Hyde Park stations, Down Street was finally closed to passengers in 1932. The platforms and Otis passenger lifts were removed, the vacant space for the latter used as a ventilator shaft. The station operated a single train siding, otherwise hibernating for the rest of the 1930s.