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London Under
From the author of the bestselling The Biography , a poetic and powerful urban history of life and legend beneath London.
This is a wonderful, atmospheric, historical, imaginative, oozing little study of verything that goes on under London, from original springs and streams and Roman amphitheatres to Victorian sewers and gang hide-outs. The depth below is hot, much warmer than the surface and this book tunnels down through the geological layers, meeting the creatures that dwell in darkness, real and fictional -- rats and eels, monsters and ghosts.
There is a bronze-age trackway under the Isle of Dogs, Wren found Anglo-Saxon graves under St Paul's, and the monastery of Whitefriars lies beneath Fleet Street. In Kensal Green cemetery there was a hydraulic device to lower bodies into the catacombs below -- "Welcome to the lower depths". A door in the plinth of statue of Boadicea on Westminster Bridge leads to a huge tunnel, packed with cables -- gas, water, telephone. When the Metropolitan Line was opened in 1864 the guards asked for permission to grow beards to protect themselves against the sulphurous fumes, and called their engines by the names of tyrants -- Czar, Kaiser, Mogul -- and even Pluto, god of the underworld.
Going under London is to penetrate history, to enter a hidden world. "The vastness of the space, a second earth,"
writes Peter Ackroyd, "elicits sensations of wonder and of terror. It partakes of myth and dream in equal measure."
From the Hardcover edition.
This is a wonderful, atmospheric, historical, imaginative, oozing little study of verything that goes on under London, from original springs and streams and Roman amphitheatres to Victorian sewers and gang hide-outs. The depth below is hot, much warmer than the surface and this book tunnels down through the geological layers, meeting the creatures that dwell in darkness, real and fictional -- rats and eels, monsters and ghosts.
There is a bronze-age trackway under the Isle of Dogs, Wren found Anglo-Saxon graves under St Paul's, and the monastery of Whitefriars lies beneath Fleet Street. In Kensal Green cemetery there was a hydraulic device to lower bodies into the catacombs below -- "Welcome to the lower depths". A door in the plinth of statue of Boadicea on Westminster Bridge leads to a huge tunnel, packed with cables -- gas, water, telephone. When the Metropolitan Line was opened in 1864 the guards asked for permission to grow beards to protect themselves against the sulphurous fumes, and called their engines by the names of tyrants -- Czar, Kaiser, Mogul -- and even Pluto, god of the underworld.
Going under London is to penetrate history, to enter a hidden world. "The vastness of the space, a second earth,"
writes Peter Ackroyd, "elicits sensations of wonder and of terror. It partakes of myth and dream in equal measure."
From the Hardcover edition.
202 pages, Paperback
First published May 2, 2011
248 people are currently reading
5080 people want to read
About the author
Peter Ackroyd
185 books1,500 followersPeter Ackroyd CBE is an English novelist and biographer with a particular interest in the history and culture of London.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 599 reviews
December 10, 2020
(B-) 69% | Satisfactory
Notes: An exercise in semiotics and lyrical prose, it's a découpage of gimcrack bric-à-brac that's prone to tilting at windmills.
Notes: An exercise in semiotics and lyrical prose, it's a découpage of gimcrack bric-à-brac that's prone to tilting at windmills.
September 29, 2025
(B-) 69% | Satisfactory
Notes: Flowingly fabulizing, furthermore, fragmentary-feeling—fundamentally factoid-focused—free from featured figures.
*Check out progress updates for detailed commentary:
Notes: Flowingly fabulizing, furthermore, fragmentary-feeling—fundamentally factoid-focused—free from featured figures.
*Check out progress updates for detailed commentary:
September 7, 2025
Typical of a Peter Ackroyd book, this is full of incredible information. Ackroyd is like a Hoover of obscure details and remarkable research. I’m a huge fan but found this book to be a little too disorganized. It seems an awful like outtakes from another of his books—London: the Biography, a book that is wonderful. Ackroyd is a historian interested in all aspects of London life layer by layer, down and down in this book. He involves myth, Roman remains, follows water and many other things. My favorite section here covers the underground in WWII.
August 19, 2012
I received this novel as part of the Goodreads First Reads program.
I really, truly wanted to love this book. The subject is utterly fascinating: underground London, from Roman ruins to present-day tube stations, complete with crypts and buried temples and outlaw hideouts and a unique (and creepy) breed of mosquito. As much as I love the gothic in general, and British history in particular, this subject is made for me.
Unfortunately, Peter Ackroyd's writing reads like a procrastinating student's first rough draft. Here are some of the problems I had with the text that prevented me from enjoying it:
1. Padding. This isn't book-length; it's essay-length. To make it book-length, fully 20-25% of the sentences are bloated, self-important, overreaching statements that say absolutely nothing (along the lines of "Every since the dawn of time, history has been happening"). Why? There's so much fat and very little meat.
2. Organization. Ackroyd flits from topic to topic, even within the same paragraph, apparently without any sense of obligation to tell the reader why. So underground London's a labyrinth. And in Greek mythology, there's a legend about a labyrinth. Okay, so what's the connection? Is there an urban legend about a Minotaur in underground London, or a street named Minotaur Lane? Or is Ackroyd saying London's labyrinths represent an intentional effort to mirror the legend? Or does the Greek legend represent some worldwide pattern in mythology about labyrinths that informs our experience of London? No, there's no connection at all. He just happened to know about the legend, seemingly, and so he included the tidbit to pad out the paragraph. This happens continually. Information isn't marshaled to make an argument: it's flung in all directions haphazardly.
3. Sources. I understand this isn't a scholarly tome, and therefore it shouldn't be packed with footnotes on every page. Nevertheless, the majority of direct quotes have no sources given at all, not even within the lines where they are featured. If a quote is worth producing, then its origin is worth knowing, to give it credibility and power. This not only makes his every assertion suspect, but it also makes it impossible for the interested reader to follow up on a specific point.
Despite the writing, I did learn interesting things; this simply makes me want to find a well-organized, well-written book on the subject to read. That's a shame. This could've been that well-organized, well-written book. It's not.
I really, truly wanted to love this book. The subject is utterly fascinating: underground London, from Roman ruins to present-day tube stations, complete with crypts and buried temples and outlaw hideouts and a unique (and creepy) breed of mosquito. As much as I love the gothic in general, and British history in particular, this subject is made for me.
Unfortunately, Peter Ackroyd's writing reads like a procrastinating student's first rough draft. Here are some of the problems I had with the text that prevented me from enjoying it:
1. Padding. This isn't book-length; it's essay-length. To make it book-length, fully 20-25% of the sentences are bloated, self-important, overreaching statements that say absolutely nothing (along the lines of "Every since the dawn of time, history has been happening"). Why? There's so much fat and very little meat.
2. Organization. Ackroyd flits from topic to topic, even within the same paragraph, apparently without any sense of obligation to tell the reader why. So underground London's a labyrinth. And in Greek mythology, there's a legend about a labyrinth. Okay, so what's the connection? Is there an urban legend about a Minotaur in underground London, or a street named Minotaur Lane? Or is Ackroyd saying London's labyrinths represent an intentional effort to mirror the legend? Or does the Greek legend represent some worldwide pattern in mythology about labyrinths that informs our experience of London? No, there's no connection at all. He just happened to know about the legend, seemingly, and so he included the tidbit to pad out the paragraph. This happens continually. Information isn't marshaled to make an argument: it's flung in all directions haphazardly.
3. Sources. I understand this isn't a scholarly tome, and therefore it shouldn't be packed with footnotes on every page. Nevertheless, the majority of direct quotes have no sources given at all, not even within the lines where they are featured. If a quote is worth producing, then its origin is worth knowing, to give it credibility and power. This not only makes his every assertion suspect, but it also makes it impossible for the interested reader to follow up on a specific point.
Despite the writing, I did learn interesting things; this simply makes me want to find a well-organized, well-written book on the subject to read. That's a shame. This could've been that well-organized, well-written book. It's not.
September 5, 2012
I'm the daughter of archaeologists, I love London, I enjoy history and I'm fascinated by catacombs, graveyards, caves, and all things underground. I secretly want Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere" to be true. So this book should have been right up my alley.
It was so dumb! I thought this would be the story of London, told from the unique perspective of things underground. What it turned out to be was a list of loosely grouped facts that Peter Ackroyd had apparently discovered while researching another book about London. It reads like a teenager's school paper where the student has copied and pasted sentences from various websites and tried to tie them together.
Let me paraphrase the book for you:
The underground is creepy and mysterious. Here are some things that are underground in London. Here is a two sentence anecdote or quote from an old-timesy person. I will now provide you a description of the route of an underground river. Here is a list of the lines and stations of the Tube. Oooooo, how spooky. I will now tease you with the possibility of a ghost story but never actually tell one. Now back to some lists and random facts. I will close with reminding you that the underground is creepy and mysterious, despite my really boring book suggesting otherwise.
It was so dumb! I thought this would be the story of London, told from the unique perspective of things underground. What it turned out to be was a list of loosely grouped facts that Peter Ackroyd had apparently discovered while researching another book about London. It reads like a teenager's school paper where the student has copied and pasted sentences from various websites and tried to tie them together.
Let me paraphrase the book for you:
The underground is creepy and mysterious. Here are some things that are underground in London. Here is a two sentence anecdote or quote from an old-timesy person. I will now provide you a description of the route of an underground river. Here is a list of the lines and stations of the Tube. Oooooo, how spooky. I will now tease you with the possibility of a ghost story but never actually tell one. Now back to some lists and random facts. I will close with reminding you that the underground is creepy and mysterious, despite my really boring book suggesting otherwise.
October 21, 2013
Peter Ackroyd, author of many tomes on fascinating subjects deviates from his usual doorstop formula and presents a whistlestop tour of the modern history of stuff happening under the streets of the modern Babylon, London.
To complain about the brevity and lack of academic referencing is to completely miss the point of this slight work, Ackroyd clearly loves his subject and manages to incite the same reaction in his reader thanks to some incredibly well chosen anecdotes.
Example chapter titles include Holy Water, Forgotten Streams, Buried Secrets and The Heart of Darkness and every page contains at least one moment of wonder to those uneducated yet enthusiastic readers (which is exactly the target audience for this work) like myself. For a chapter or two I thought it was going to take me weeks to read due the sheer quantity of google and wiki searches I was performing to acquire further knowledge of a proffered fact whilst reading before readjusting my mindset to just let the author entertain me with his seemingly endless supply of poetic historical tales.
I devoured this book, loved every moment and feel suitably primed to venture in to further study of the subject matter, surely there can be no higher praise for such a work?
To complain about the brevity and lack of academic referencing is to completely miss the point of this slight work, Ackroyd clearly loves his subject and manages to incite the same reaction in his reader thanks to some incredibly well chosen anecdotes.
Example chapter titles include Holy Water, Forgotten Streams, Buried Secrets and The Heart of Darkness and every page contains at least one moment of wonder to those uneducated yet enthusiastic readers (which is exactly the target audience for this work) like myself. For a chapter or two I thought it was going to take me weeks to read due the sheer quantity of google and wiki searches I was performing to acquire further knowledge of a proffered fact whilst reading before readjusting my mindset to just let the author entertain me with his seemingly endless supply of poetic historical tales.
I devoured this book, loved every moment and feel suitably primed to venture in to further study of the subject matter, surely there can be no higher praise for such a work?
March 20, 2012
The subject is fascinating, but the book itself is poorly written and doesn't go in-depth about the subject. It's all surface (ironically, considering the subject matter). Many quotes are unattributed and there is not a notes section in the back of the book. And the constant portentious statements hammering in the theme of "the underworld is primal!" detracted considerably from the various interesting facts.
For example, here's a long paragraph from pp. 133-4 of my edition of the book, talking about the London tube system:
'More serious objections were raised. It would become a haven for Fenians and other terrorists, who would explode barrels of dynamite and destroy parts of the city. Several such explosions did indeed take place. The first of them was carried out by the 'Dynamiters' in 1881, when a charge of nitro-glycerine blew up in the tunnel of the District Line between Charing Cross and Westminster stations. There have been other such events ever since, most notably on the morning of 7 July 2005 when within fifty seconds three bombs exploded on three underground trains. The perpetrators were young Muslim men, but the motives for creating subterranean terror belong to no one faith. The fear of the underground is still very real.It is associated with the terror of an inferno beneath the surface, congruent to hell itself. Many escalator fires have started, most notably that in King's Cross in 1987 where twenty-seven people were killed. It was argued by some at the time that 'fires were a part of the nature of the oldest, most extensive, underground railway in the world.'"
In this one paragraph, you can see everything (in my opinion) that's wrong with the book. It glosses over a fascinating subject that could be a book in its own right, jumps from topic to topic without a lot of cohesion, asserts (portentiously, and bizarrely) that terrorism is caused by fear of the underground, and finishes with an unattributed quote.
I was really disappointed.
For example, here's a long paragraph from pp. 133-4 of my edition of the book, talking about the London tube system:
'More serious objections were raised. It would become a haven for Fenians and other terrorists, who would explode barrels of dynamite and destroy parts of the city. Several such explosions did indeed take place. The first of them was carried out by the 'Dynamiters' in 1881, when a charge of nitro-glycerine blew up in the tunnel of the District Line between Charing Cross and Westminster stations. There have been other such events ever since, most notably on the morning of 7 July 2005 when within fifty seconds three bombs exploded on three underground trains. The perpetrators were young Muslim men, but the motives for creating subterranean terror belong to no one faith. The fear of the underground is still very real.It is associated with the terror of an inferno beneath the surface, congruent to hell itself. Many escalator fires have started, most notably that in King's Cross in 1987 where twenty-seven people were killed. It was argued by some at the time that 'fires were a part of the nature of the oldest, most extensive, underground railway in the world.'"
In this one paragraph, you can see everything (in my opinion) that's wrong with the book. It glosses over a fascinating subject that could be a book in its own right, jumps from topic to topic without a lot of cohesion, asserts (portentiously, and bizarrely) that terrorism is caused by fear of the underground, and finishes with an unattributed quote.
I was really disappointed.
January 7, 2013
This is not a work of history, though it relies on history. It is not scholarly, not footnoted to the point of immobility, skewering reality on a butterfly pin, so that what we see is a lifeless visage of something beautiful and great. No, it is a piece of poetry in prose form. And perhaps that was the only way to really write a book such as this and in some way capture the fascination that led to its creation. London Under is a panoramic look at what lies beneath the modern city of London. It looks at the archaeological remains, the sewers, the rivers and springs, the tubes. And it does so in an almost stream of consciousness fashion, as Ackroyd covers the topic as it interests him, rather than pursuing any dry plan. This approach is definitely not to everyone's tastes, and, if you are looking for a exceedingly well-researched tome, avoid this. If you are looking for something that will haunt your dreams, that will give you a glimpse of the soul of one of the great cities of history, then this is a book for you. London is another of the cities that people speak of as a personality. And though I believe that all places where humans choose to live have a personality, rarely is it so loud and defined as it is in London. Recommended. with the above caveats.
March 23, 2016
The London skyline is famous all round the world, but apart from the tube, beneath the streets very few people know what is there.
Ackroyd's book really only scratches the surface, as it is fairly short, but he uncovers litte gems of information on the 2000 year old history of London. Every time anyone digs a hole there another nugget of history is revealed. There are chapters on the tube, the hidden rivers of London, and the Fleet, which was 60 feet wide at certain points has a whole chapter to itself. There are sketchy details on the government tunnels, so of which are open to the public, and others that are still not.
Some of the archeological details are fascinating, in particular the finds, and in some case still operational Roman water courses.
Really enjoyed reading it, looking forward to some of his other books now.
Ackroyd's book really only scratches the surface, as it is fairly short, but he uncovers litte gems of information on the 2000 year old history of London. Every time anyone digs a hole there another nugget of history is revealed. There are chapters on the tube, the hidden rivers of London, and the Fleet, which was 60 feet wide at certain points has a whole chapter to itself. There are sketchy details on the government tunnels, so of which are open to the public, and others that are still not.
Some of the archeological details are fascinating, in particular the finds, and in some case still operational Roman water courses.
Really enjoyed reading it, looking forward to some of his other books now.
June 11, 2017
A mixed bag. Worth reading, for sure but, for me at least, the interest is tied to the specific subject being discussed. There are lots of details in this book but no depth to bring the details to life. I'd say that this book is more of an introduction to the world under London. In the end, I enjoyed the read but was left wanting somehow.
The chapters with subjects that interested me, I found fascinating despite wanting to know more. Complete, ancient rooms found (some were, sadly, destroyed) and no mention of what was found in the ones not destroyed.
The chapters with subjects that didn't interest me were okay and slow. For example, the chapter on the bunkers built to house thousands of people in times of disaster or the bunkers established for war communication during the war. Perhaps with some added depth, the subject would have drawn me in.
The unique class of mosquito that has developed underground is a fascinating subject that got one sentence.
The Underground is a fascinating place. This book is an introduction of how varied the Underground is and how it serves us throughout the ages.
I will read more by this author; something that he talks about in more detail. The subjects here seemed to be rather skimmed.
The chapters with subjects that interested me, I found fascinating despite wanting to know more. Complete, ancient rooms found (some were, sadly, destroyed) and no mention of what was found in the ones not destroyed.
The chapters with subjects that didn't interest me were okay and slow. For example, the chapter on the bunkers built to house thousands of people in times of disaster or the bunkers established for war communication during the war. Perhaps with some added depth, the subject would have drawn me in.
The unique class of mosquito that has developed underground is a fascinating subject that got one sentence.
The Underground is a fascinating place. This book is an introduction of how varied the Underground is and how it serves us throughout the ages.
I will read more by this author; something that he talks about in more detail. The subjects here seemed to be rather skimmed.
June 1, 2017
A story of the secret rivers, sewers, and subways, the government shelters, and people who dwell beneath London. A journey through time and legend, digging up ghosts and ghouls along with the past. Who can resist the idea of all those deserted stations underground, of hybrid mosquitoes and river gods and sacrifices, of pestilence following the forgotten streams, of people like 'Moleman' William Lyttle who tunneled beneath his council house in Hackney for over forty years? Not me.
Loved Ackroyd's style - always adding a telling line, a profound counterpoint, or succinct observation. Jack the Ripper on the Tube? Marvelous.
Loved Ackroyd's style - always adding a telling line, a profound counterpoint, or succinct observation. Jack the Ripper on the Tube? Marvelous.
August 23, 2015
excellent book, maybe a bit..sensationalised. doesn't cover as much archaeology as i thought it would. also covers London's rivers, the Tube, misc. peppered with accounts from roman, anglo-saxon to present day.
December 16, 2016
The few chapters I really liked made this 4 stars. The mole men and also the war below.
September 28, 2016
“Tread carefully over the pavements of London for you are treading on skin, a skein of stone that covers rivers and labyrinths, tunnels and chambers, streams and caverns, pipes and cables, springs and passages, crypts and sewers, creeping things that will never see the light of day.... May this book be considered a votive offering to the gods who lie beneath London.”
Tap the waterphone and strike a match! Peter Ackroyd’s London Under (2011) begs for a foggy night and flickering lights as it sets out to reveal secrets hidden beneath the city’s skin. London underground can be spooky. Anyone who has ever found himself alone on a Tube platform on a rainy evening has experienced an undeniable frisson.
But Ackroyd plays up the underworld’s chill with such spongy logic and stagy language that you may read this small companion piece to his London The Biography and Thames Sacred River as an alluring but slightly cloying amuse bouche. The chapter titles - Darkness Visible, Old Man River, The Heart of Darkness, The Mole Men, and Deep Fantasies - hint that either Ackroyd’s Muse has dried up ... or he regards the book as a farce. It’s a pity he didn’t organize his material in terms of a dissection. In the first chapter you won’t have to listen hard to hear Ackroyd channeling the voice of Vincent Price to introduce this collection of essays on London’s nether regions. This tone makes parts of the book a pretty corny; Ackroyd’s overplayed the “psycho” in psychogeography.
Horror, even campy horror, succeeds best when it slowly removes the familiar and pries open our grip on reality, replacing it with what was once not only unacceptable, but inconceivable. London Under does the exact opposite of this. From the beginning it’s rich with precise detail and tangible tidbits dredged up from the past. The past becomes present, a well-lit display inviting our inspection. Ackroyd’s reveling in well documented detail costs him his uncanny atmosphere. The lights go one in the middle of the seance, and we’re all left smirking at one another. Hundreds of books have told how Bazalgette’s sewers eradicated cholera. Thousands of people have inspected the altar of Mithras, Roman pavements, and dinosaur bones found under the city’s streets. And millions of commuters have shuttled through the dark under the Thames by foot or by rail. There’s nothing surprising or mysterious or even secret in this book for them.
The book’s true worth is found as it uncovers a handful of odd men who have been forgotten to our myopic popular culture like William Lyttle of Hackney, who dug a network of tunnels, some over 60 feet long, radiating from his basement, or investigative reporter Duncan Campbell, who probed the city’s bowels on a bicycle 30 years ago, riding some 20 miles underground through secret government tunnels. I’d never read before that during the Blitz the Underground provided Londoners with 52 lending libraries to help pass the time as they waited for the all clear. Notes like these save this quick, one-day read.
Ackroyd claims that the “whole history of the city is compressed to little less than 30 feet.” What he gives us is a slice of that, a little stale, but not too dense, and nicely seasoned with curious facts. There’s nothing groundbreaking, and his attempts to conjure up the occult conk out. Perhaps he should have packaged a DVD of Quartermass and the Pit with it. Still, London Under is a fun read. It takes the stance of pop history - rambling, flashy, fairly wobbly on its logical legs - and enriches it with the author’s extraordinary knowledge of the city and his exquisite verbal facility. To his everlasting credit, ancient aliens are never invoked as an explanation. Four stars for the bibliography, which will tempt you to undertake more serious research of life under London.
Tap the waterphone and strike a match! Peter Ackroyd’s London Under (2011) begs for a foggy night and flickering lights as it sets out to reveal secrets hidden beneath the city’s skin. London underground can be spooky. Anyone who has ever found himself alone on a Tube platform on a rainy evening has experienced an undeniable frisson.
But Ackroyd plays up the underworld’s chill with such spongy logic and stagy language that you may read this small companion piece to his London The Biography and Thames Sacred River as an alluring but slightly cloying amuse bouche. The chapter titles - Darkness Visible, Old Man River, The Heart of Darkness, The Mole Men, and Deep Fantasies - hint that either Ackroyd’s Muse has dried up ... or he regards the book as a farce. It’s a pity he didn’t organize his material in terms of a dissection. In the first chapter you won’t have to listen hard to hear Ackroyd channeling the voice of Vincent Price to introduce this collection of essays on London’s nether regions. This tone makes parts of the book a pretty corny; Ackroyd’s overplayed the “psycho” in psychogeography.
Horror, even campy horror, succeeds best when it slowly removes the familiar and pries open our grip on reality, replacing it with what was once not only unacceptable, but inconceivable. London Under does the exact opposite of this. From the beginning it’s rich with precise detail and tangible tidbits dredged up from the past. The past becomes present, a well-lit display inviting our inspection. Ackroyd’s reveling in well documented detail costs him his uncanny atmosphere. The lights go one in the middle of the seance, and we’re all left smirking at one another. Hundreds of books have told how Bazalgette’s sewers eradicated cholera. Thousands of people have inspected the altar of Mithras, Roman pavements, and dinosaur bones found under the city’s streets. And millions of commuters have shuttled through the dark under the Thames by foot or by rail. There’s nothing surprising or mysterious or even secret in this book for them.
The book’s true worth is found as it uncovers a handful of odd men who have been forgotten to our myopic popular culture like William Lyttle of Hackney, who dug a network of tunnels, some over 60 feet long, radiating from his basement, or investigative reporter Duncan Campbell, who probed the city’s bowels on a bicycle 30 years ago, riding some 20 miles underground through secret government tunnels. I’d never read before that during the Blitz the Underground provided Londoners with 52 lending libraries to help pass the time as they waited for the all clear. Notes like these save this quick, one-day read.
Ackroyd claims that the “whole history of the city is compressed to little less than 30 feet.” What he gives us is a slice of that, a little stale, but not too dense, and nicely seasoned with curious facts. There’s nothing groundbreaking, and his attempts to conjure up the occult conk out. Perhaps he should have packaged a DVD of Quartermass and the Pit with it. Still, London Under is a fun read. It takes the stance of pop history - rambling, flashy, fairly wobbly on its logical legs - and enriches it with the author’s extraordinary knowledge of the city and his exquisite verbal facility. To his everlasting credit, ancient aliens are never invoked as an explanation. Four stars for the bibliography, which will tempt you to undertake more serious research of life under London.
November 2, 2012
It reads like a nineteenth century guidebook and anyone who's seen a nineteenth century guidebook will know what I mean.
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December 20, 2018This has been sitting on my to-read pile for ages, and I finally picked it up yesterday. It's Ackroyd-lite--a charming mish-mash of whimsy, trivia, history, and occasional flashes of lyricism, but without the heft of his bigger tomes. I zoomed through it in an afternoon, picked up lots of little sparkles of interest which could decorate my current WIP, and looked a few places up on a map out of curiosity. A pleasant way to spend a winter's afternoon.
December 23, 2015
The real life inspiration behind Neverwhere (Read this too!) and Rivers of London (Just read the blurb maybe). In this case, the truth is just as incredible as the fiction.
As an irredeemable country-boy, I've always considered myself as perpetual visitor to the city (however, having lived here 5 years now, I claim the right to tut-tut at tourists standing on the left side of the escalators!). There's no doubt though that London has a certain scale and history that ranks it among the greatest cities in the world.
Everyone knows London has at least one river right? But I found it fascinating to learn that there's another twelve still bubbling away, disciples of Father Thames, now for the most part buried beneath the streets. There's also a gloriously British hodge-podge excuse for an underground railway. Of course I refer to the now internationally famous product of engineering brilliance and bravery, and corporate short-sightedness and incompetence, the Tube.
As an engineer I have to give a brief mention to a man who Londoners these days probably don't know too much about, but without whom would be living in a very, very smelly place. Joseph Bazalgette created the London sewerage system as we know and love it, among many other impressive engineering achievements. There's a plethora of delightfully slimy, sewer-based descriptions in this book.
There's a great poetic style to the prose, but the author doesn't let that become overpowering. There's enough little-known and surprising stuff going on under London (Oh, now I get it...) to keep you reading anyway.
However, I'd say this is better suited to an interested Londoner (or Northerners living in London), as there are a lot of place and street names that won't mean much unless you recognise them. To find out that there's things lurking below the streets you've been treading for years that you never even thought about is fascinating. Plus you get to bore everyone with your new-found local knowledge!
As an irredeemable country-boy, I've always considered myself as perpetual visitor to the city (however, having lived here 5 years now, I claim the right to tut-tut at tourists standing on the left side of the escalators!). There's no doubt though that London has a certain scale and history that ranks it among the greatest cities in the world.
Everyone knows London has at least one river right? But I found it fascinating to learn that there's another twelve still bubbling away, disciples of Father Thames, now for the most part buried beneath the streets. There's also a gloriously British hodge-podge excuse for an underground railway. Of course I refer to the now internationally famous product of engineering brilliance and bravery, and corporate short-sightedness and incompetence, the Tube.
As an engineer I have to give a brief mention to a man who Londoners these days probably don't know too much about, but without whom would be living in a very, very smelly place. Joseph Bazalgette created the London sewerage system as we know and love it, among many other impressive engineering achievements. There's a plethora of delightfully slimy, sewer-based descriptions in this book.
There's a great poetic style to the prose, but the author doesn't let that become overpowering. There's enough little-known and surprising stuff going on under London (Oh, now I get it...) to keep you reading anyway.
However, I'd say this is better suited to an interested Londoner (or Northerners living in London), as there are a lot of place and street names that won't mean much unless you recognise them. To find out that there's things lurking below the streets you've been treading for years that you never even thought about is fascinating. Plus you get to bore everyone with your new-found local knowledge!
May 1, 2025
For a book about everything below the ground, this was a very surface read.
March 24, 2014
A book that concisely synthesizes the history of an ancient and fascinating city with our attraction to getting into places we're not supposed to go. It should have been a slam dunk.
It reads like a first-year college history paper thrown together at the last minute. The facts are there, and can sometimes make your eyes bulge with interest, but whenever he tries his hand at commentary, Oh Boy. Among the annoyances:
1. Trying to make things sound creepy or mysterious, that aren't
2. The comparisons between underground London and the underworlds of various mythologies get stale really, really fast, especially after the first twenty or so.
3. Attempts at punchy, grand sentences that are supposed to induce some sort of unease come off as corny ("It was the evil of the subterranean depths.")
4. Some sentences are just stupid ("Sewers can never wholly be trusted.")
5. I like the semicolon as much as the next guy, but not in every third sentence
6. Most irritating of all, the above qualities (minus the semicolon) often combine and show up as one rage-inducing sentence in the middle of a paragraph or--especially--at the end of a paragraph. It's as if a high school-aged editor with a sensationalist streak handed the author a list of such sentences--a hundred or so--with the instruction to "just put these in there. Anywhere in there is fine." It got to the point that I began dreading the end of a paragraph somewhere near the beginning of the paragraph.
Bonus: 7. This book is best understood, I think, by lifelong London residents working in local cartography or in public transportation. No maps are included, and if they were, I don't see how they could begin to plot all of the points referred to in the text. Perhaps a native Londoner has the kind of command of place needed to follow along. Or perhaps I just didn't have the gumption or reason to consult a map (I will probably never travel to London to find the corner of X and Y and the secret door under the stairs, anyway). So this point is take-it-or-leave-it.
The stars are for the content: it's fascinating stuff. People just have an urge to get to the top of things, or to get beneath them. Everyone has had a buried treasure fantasy. I learned plenty and was captivated by the subject. I loved reading the book, but hated reading the writing.
It reads like a first-year college history paper thrown together at the last minute. The facts are there, and can sometimes make your eyes bulge with interest, but whenever he tries his hand at commentary, Oh Boy. Among the annoyances:
1. Trying to make things sound creepy or mysterious, that aren't
2. The comparisons between underground London and the underworlds of various mythologies get stale really, really fast, especially after the first twenty or so.
3. Attempts at punchy, grand sentences that are supposed to induce some sort of unease come off as corny ("It was the evil of the subterranean depths.")
4. Some sentences are just stupid ("Sewers can never wholly be trusted.")
5. I like the semicolon as much as the next guy, but not in every third sentence
6. Most irritating of all, the above qualities (minus the semicolon) often combine and show up as one rage-inducing sentence in the middle of a paragraph or--especially--at the end of a paragraph. It's as if a high school-aged editor with a sensationalist streak handed the author a list of such sentences--a hundred or so--with the instruction to "just put these in there. Anywhere in there is fine." It got to the point that I began dreading the end of a paragraph somewhere near the beginning of the paragraph.
Bonus: 7. This book is best understood, I think, by lifelong London residents working in local cartography or in public transportation. No maps are included, and if they were, I don't see how they could begin to plot all of the points referred to in the text. Perhaps a native Londoner has the kind of command of place needed to follow along. Or perhaps I just didn't have the gumption or reason to consult a map (I will probably never travel to London to find the corner of X and Y and the secret door under the stairs, anyway). So this point is take-it-or-leave-it.
The stars are for the content: it's fascinating stuff. People just have an urge to get to the top of things, or to get beneath them. Everyone has had a buried treasure fantasy. I learned plenty and was captivated by the subject. I loved reading the book, but hated reading the writing.
May 15, 2011
This short and well written book is an annexe to Ackroyd’s ‘biography’ of London, a history of the city that treats it as if it has a personality. It is also part of the psycho-geographical cast of mind that now defines part of the modern London literary community.
What does he cover? - archaeology, ancient springs, underground rivers, the Fleet, the water conduits, the sewers, the underground railways (at length), the wartime and cold war secret cities and the life of Londoners who went underground in times of danger.
Older and older Londons lie beneath today’s London. We have dug tunnels through all of them. He writes with a fine sense of what it is to be grounded in the city and to partake of its literary and cultural heritage.
My own test was whether he mentioned ‘Quatermass and the Pit’, the classic Hammer horror – he did. But there is not much to review here. It is 180 pages of ‘buried treasure’ and of further reading. I shall be returning to it for just that purpose. I am even considering a Subterranean Britain Facebook Group.
One thought occurs, however. The underground has many symbolic meanings but Ackroyd perhaps does not emphasise one enough, perhaps because it is one for the future. It is a place of resistance as well as a place of secret control. There is a symbolic struggle under the streets.
The organisation of East Enders in war time at 'Mickey's Shelter' by organised crime under a neglectful Government counters the State’s refusal to let any of us take Duncan Campbell’s illicit cycle ride across London through a 20 foot tunnel built for ‘their’ convenience and not ours.
One popular cultural icon Ackroyd does not mention. He should have done so. Dr. Who. In the original ‘Dr Who and the Daleks’, the English resistance (a coded reference back to the sewers of Warsaw, with the Daleks as a remembrance of Nazi storm-troopers) takes place in the London Underground.
Until this book, I had thought resistance underground was no more feasible than the existence of the Daleks. Now I know better. No wonder the State, having built or overseen this massive interconnected warren, is determined to seal off what it can against ‘terrorists’, perhaps against us one day.
What does he cover? - archaeology, ancient springs, underground rivers, the Fleet, the water conduits, the sewers, the underground railways (at length), the wartime and cold war secret cities and the life of Londoners who went underground in times of danger.
Older and older Londons lie beneath today’s London. We have dug tunnels through all of them. He writes with a fine sense of what it is to be grounded in the city and to partake of its literary and cultural heritage.
My own test was whether he mentioned ‘Quatermass and the Pit’, the classic Hammer horror – he did. But there is not much to review here. It is 180 pages of ‘buried treasure’ and of further reading. I shall be returning to it for just that purpose. I am even considering a Subterranean Britain Facebook Group.
One thought occurs, however. The underground has many symbolic meanings but Ackroyd perhaps does not emphasise one enough, perhaps because it is one for the future. It is a place of resistance as well as a place of secret control. There is a symbolic struggle under the streets.
The organisation of East Enders in war time at 'Mickey's Shelter' by organised crime under a neglectful Government counters the State’s refusal to let any of us take Duncan Campbell’s illicit cycle ride across London through a 20 foot tunnel built for ‘their’ convenience and not ours.
One popular cultural icon Ackroyd does not mention. He should have done so. Dr. Who. In the original ‘Dr Who and the Daleks’, the English resistance (a coded reference back to the sewers of Warsaw, with the Daleks as a remembrance of Nazi storm-troopers) takes place in the London Underground.
Until this book, I had thought resistance underground was no more feasible than the existence of the Daleks. Now I know better. No wonder the State, having built or overseen this massive interconnected warren, is determined to seal off what it can against ‘terrorists’, perhaps against us one day.
December 10, 2012
Without a doubt this is the shortest Peter Ackroyd book I've read. It was also not one of the best. He really tried to make the London Underground seem mysterious and exciting, as if it was something people never think about, instead of something that millions of commuters use each year! While there are a lot of cities where no one things of what happens underground, London just really isn't one of them. The first and last chapters that tried to give off an atmosphere of danger and novelty just kinda failed. The book was part geography, part history and part folklore. (And as a history it really wasn't very good, how can you mention the danger of using the tube stations for shelter in WWII and not mention the Bethnal Green tube disaster?) The book started with looking at some of the Roman ruins and burials that had been found under the city, which was quite interesting. The next chapters covered springs, wells, rivers and honestly I found them a little dull. There was then an ok history of the tube that lasted for three chapters, but as I've already said left out some important events. This felt like a Christmas book, nothing really solid just little tid bits of interesting information or stories you could read out to people to be amusing or shocking. I must admit that I was quite disappointed! That's two of his books I've read in a row that I've not enjoyed so I think I might not read any more of his books.
November 7, 2011
This is a wonderful companion book to Ackroyd's two other books, history books, focusing on Loncon (London: The Biography and The Thames: Sacred River). The book is short and can easily be read in one sitting. It also is a good companion to Underground London: Travels Beneath the City Streets.
Ackroyd's book actually does follow a sense of the development of the underground moving from water to trains. It is a more of an overview than a in-depth history (the length of say two or three chapters in his other London history). What makes the book wonderful is Ackroyd's poetic way of writing and his wonder at how much history residents walk upon.
Ackroyd's book actually does follow a sense of the development of the underground moving from water to trains. It is a more of an overview than a in-depth history (the length of say two or three chapters in his other London history). What makes the book wonderful is Ackroyd's poetic way of writing and his wonder at how much history residents walk upon.
June 8, 2018
Peter Ackroyd's London Under: The Secret History Beneath the Streets takes us below the level of the pavement to a subterranean world of sewers, storage vaults, refuges from bombings, and subways. You might say that it's a below-the-ground companion to the same author's London: The Biography.
At the end, the author summarizes:
At the end, the author summarizes:
We have completed, under [the gods'] auspices, a long journey through the bowels of the London earth. We have come upon dreams and desires, fears and longings; there have been moments of wonder and moments of terror; the sacred and the profane have been found in close proximity. Dirt and squalor exist beside mystery and even beauty. It is the home of the devil and of holy water. The underworld moves the imagination to awe and to horror. It is in part a human world, made from the activities of many generations, but it is also primeval and inhuman. It repels clarity and thought. It may offer safety for some, but it does not offer solace. London is built upon darkness.
January 14, 2026
Super enjoyable! Not the most groundbreaking writing style or anything, but I learned a lot about London that was really fascinating and accessible.
Made me realize just how much I take for granted living in one of the most historic and revolutionary cities ever.
Made me realize just how much I take for granted living in one of the most historic and revolutionary cities ever.
March 14, 2021
So this contained some interesting titbits about London's submerged world, the underground (Tube), the rivers of the capital, basements and cellars etc.
There was nothing to blow me away I must say and the writing was very average, but it was a good way to spend a few hours reading about disused Tube stations, haunted underground locations and random building stats!
I think this would be far more enjoyable if you loved in/had intimate knowledge of the parts of London that Ackroyd describes.
There was nothing to blow me away I must say and the writing was very average, but it was a good way to spend a few hours reading about disused Tube stations, haunted underground locations and random building stats!
I think this would be far more enjoyable if you loved in/had intimate knowledge of the parts of London that Ackroyd describes.
January 15, 2023
Peter always makes history interesting. More pictures would be great though.
April 18, 2023
An oddity. A book of tenaciously-researched facts, listed more-or-less thematically; many interesting, some not. A book in need - badly in need - of some kind of narrative arc. A book in need of maps.
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November 1, 2025Momentami naprawdę ciekawe, choć wyjątkowo niezdarne stylistycznie.
December 25, 2024
It was OK – at least, the author was telling me things. Lots of things – he has gathered a wide range of anecdotes and factoids and grouped them under their logical headings: buried rivers, for instance, or wells. It doesn’t pretend to be deeply researched or to tell a narrative history in any way. Just a bunch of stories and tidbits.
He often relates the tidbits to what you can see today: a certain locale still regularly flooded by the buried Fleet River, say, or a Plain tree marking the site of an old well. Fun fact: names like “Bridewell” and similar well-cognates derive from specific wells that used to dot the city. Ackroyd declares that it would be far too tedious to list them all, and mercifully refrains from doing so.
Thus, I think it could be a good resource for constructing one’s own eclectic self-guided nerd tour. As a non-Londoner, I feel ill-equipped to grapple with placing the many waypoints that he throws out: King’s Cross, Shepherd’s Bush Roundabout, or whatever. As a reading experience, I found that it was causing me to skim. Whether it was filler sentences or overly-florid phrasing, or silly references to underworld demons, or my own atrophying ability to focus on written text, I just skated over a lot of paragraphs.
“Sewers can never wholly be trusted.” To boldly split an infinitive. To fatuously add a note of fake malevolence to the prosaic idea that one doesn’t want to be in the storm sewer when it rains.
About electrical wiring: “the heat is so intense that every cable has to be well insulated.” What a bone-headed statement.
William Lyttle: some guy built a system of tunnels underneath his property, ultimately disturbing the neighbors and damaging some electrical wires. Now that’s a guy I can relate to. What I cannot relate to is Ackroyd’s infuriating habit of garbling any incipient synthesis of an engineering project with such stupid references as “the mythic horrors of the underworld had taken a large toll” (men got sick from the working conditions) and “he was the first propitiary sacrifice” (a man was killed in an accident).
The Docklands light railway tunnel, the latest tunnel beneath the Thames: “once the travelers are beneath the river, they seem to be plunged into a deeper darkness, at once more intimate and more threatening."What nonsense! The DLR opened in 1987, has been extended a couple of times, and looks to be a marvel of modern engineering from what I can see on Wikipedia. Why are you trying to turn this completely fine public project into some kind of creepy horror?
“[The tunnels of the Underground] are also a vast reservoir of mortality, with large amounts of human hair and skin to be removed each night between 1 and 5 in the morning.” WHAT. Are you talking about the simple fact that there is a cleaning staff? What is this nonsensical formulation of “human hair and skin”?
“Ghosts are quite at home in the underworld.” OK, now I am just hate-reading. This is so stupid. I have a mental image now of this author. I picture him wearing a big ol’ sweater and wearing a moustache. Yeah. A foppish moustache. A supercilious air. And a Fine Arts degree in his pocket.
He often relates the tidbits to what you can see today: a certain locale still regularly flooded by the buried Fleet River, say, or a Plain tree marking the site of an old well. Fun fact: names like “Bridewell” and similar well-cognates derive from specific wells that used to dot the city. Ackroyd declares that it would be far too tedious to list them all, and mercifully refrains from doing so.
Thus, I think it could be a good resource for constructing one’s own eclectic self-guided nerd tour. As a non-Londoner, I feel ill-equipped to grapple with placing the many waypoints that he throws out: King’s Cross, Shepherd’s Bush Roundabout, or whatever. As a reading experience, I found that it was causing me to skim. Whether it was filler sentences or overly-florid phrasing, or silly references to underworld demons, or my own atrophying ability to focus on written text, I just skated over a lot of paragraphs.
“Sewers can never wholly be trusted.” To boldly split an infinitive. To fatuously add a note of fake malevolence to the prosaic idea that one doesn’t want to be in the storm sewer when it rains.
About electrical wiring: “the heat is so intense that every cable has to be well insulated.” What a bone-headed statement.
William Lyttle: some guy built a system of tunnels underneath his property, ultimately disturbing the neighbors and damaging some electrical wires. Now that’s a guy I can relate to. What I cannot relate to is Ackroyd’s infuriating habit of garbling any incipient synthesis of an engineering project with such stupid references as “the mythic horrors of the underworld had taken a large toll” (men got sick from the working conditions) and “he was the first propitiary sacrifice” (a man was killed in an accident).
The Docklands light railway tunnel, the latest tunnel beneath the Thames: “once the travelers are beneath the river, they seem to be plunged into a deeper darkness, at once more intimate and more threatening."What nonsense! The DLR opened in 1987, has been extended a couple of times, and looks to be a marvel of modern engineering from what I can see on Wikipedia. Why are you trying to turn this completely fine public project into some kind of creepy horror?
“[The tunnels of the Underground] are also a vast reservoir of mortality, with large amounts of human hair and skin to be removed each night between 1 and 5 in the morning.” WHAT. Are you talking about the simple fact that there is a cleaning staff? What is this nonsensical formulation of “human hair and skin”?
“Ghosts are quite at home in the underworld.” OK, now I am just hate-reading. This is so stupid. I have a mental image now of this author. I picture him wearing a big ol’ sweater and wearing a moustache. Yeah. A foppish moustache. A supercilious air. And a Fine Arts degree in his pocket.
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