Tag Archives: Bond

Hidden London – Charing Cross Station, London, England

11 Wednesday Oct 2017

Posted by in Sightseeing, Train & Bus Travel, Travel News & Tips

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London Transport Museum regularly run tours of disused Underground stations and tunnels. These tours are always popular and sell out really quickly. I previously visited the old/disused Strand/Aldgate station and really enjoyed that, Euston not as much.

The Museum website wrote this about the tour:
Enjoy this opportunity to explore the disused areas of Charing Cross Underground station. Go behind closed doors to exclusive areas not accessible to the public, walk under Trafalgar Square and see the London Underground from a different angle. Closed to the public since 1999, the Jubilee line platforms are now synonymous with movie and TV filming. This is a unique opportunity to view the sites where blockbuster movies such as Skyfall (2011/12) Paddington Bear (2013) and TV’s 24 (2014) were filmed.

We met our guides at the bottom of the stairs of exit 3 of Charing Cross mainline and Underground station. Our names were checked and we were provided with high-visibility jackets.

If you’re interested in matching my pictures to scenes from the James Bond movie Skyfall, then watch this excerpt from the movie first:

We were waved through the ticket barriers and led through a secret door to find a set of modern escalators. We had to walk down these.

At the bottom of the escalator was a sign for Jubilee Line – there was an original plan for this line to run from Charing Cross, hence the modern station, now abandoned.

A similar sign was on the platform wall.

The platform was modern, but missing the ceiling. You can see this same ceiling in the Skyfall video.

We then found another set of escalators. Notice how the triangles that normally stop anyone from sliding down the middle were removed – this for this scene near the end of the above video.

The scene from Skyfall was projected onto the end wall so we could identify the locations.

We then went back up, through the main station and through another secret door that lead to the hidden tunnels and walkways behind the station. Below is a picture taken looking down onto an in-use platform.

And a video of a train and passengers unaware of who was above.

We walked along some earth-removal tunnels that ran under Trafalgar Square.

Then we visited an underground cooling tower that exhausts hot air into the street.

The bottom of the tower has some steps – used by Bond in the Skyfall chase scene.

We completed the tour by exiting the door that Bond opens onto the passenger walkway.

This was an interesting tour, especially for James Bond fans. The volunteer guides, as always were friendly. I still prefer the tours of long-abandoned stations, with posters reflecting the era from when they closed.

Tour duration: 75 minutes approx.
Location: Charing Cross
Tickets: Adult £36.50; Concession £31.50 (+ £1.50 booking fee per transaction)

https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whats-on/hidden-london/charing-cross

Places that I want to visit – Hashima (Gunkanjima/Battleship) Island, Japan

05 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Sightseeing, Travel News & Tips

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I don’t really like the term ‘Bucket List’ as there seems to be some finality to the whole thing. What happens when you’ve completed your bucket list – are you allowed to add more? There are also places that I didn’t even know existed until yesterday. That’s why I called this article ‘Places that I want to visit – ‘ – and yes I realise that title won’t win any travel awards.

I’ll add a different place for each ‘Places that I want to visit -‘ article. They aren’t in any particular order. If you feel that I’ve missed somewhere amazing, it may be that I already visited. Or it may be that I’m not that interested – Rio de Janeiro, Machu Picchu, in fact anywhere in South America, are way down my list. I have a feeling that Rio de Janeiro and the Copacabana are all about the sexiness of the name and the reality would be a disappointment.

I really like abandoned places and really enjoyed our trip to Alcatraz Island. I did have a plan to visit Chernobyl, Ukraine, until the conflict made this impractical. Hashima Island is another abandoned place – now more famous for featuring in the James Bond movie – Skyfall. However, I believe that Pinewood Studios re-created part of the island in England, rather than the actual place being used as a location.

From Wikipedia:

Hashima Island (端島 or Hashima — -shima is a Japanese suffix for island?), commonly called Gunkanjima (軍艦島; meaning Battleship Island), is an abandoned island lying about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the city of Nagasaki, in southern Japan. It is one of 505 uninhabited islands in Nagasaki Prefecture. The island’s most notable features are the abandoned and undisturbed concrete apartment buildings and the surrounding sea wall.

The island was known for its undersea coal mines, established in 1887, which operated during the industrialization of Japan. In 1959, the 6.3-hectare (16-acre) island’s population reached its peak of 5,259. The mine was closed in 1974, and all of the residents left the island soon after. Due to lack of maintenance several buildings have collapsed since, and other buildings are subject to breakage. However, certain collapsed exterior walls have been restored.

I’ve linked to pictures taken by Mark C O’Flaherty who wrote an Article about the island for the UK Independent newspaper.

‘Battleship Island’ (Mark C O’Flaherty)

Water feature: corridors are half flooded (Mark C O’Flaherty)

 

A decades-old television (Mark C O’Flaherty)

 

Haunted ruins: derelict apartments still display some of their original features (Mark C O’Flaherty)

 

A sea of ruins (Mark C O’Flaherty)

There are also some great pictures on http://www.hashima-island.com/