Piccadilly Circus's Disused Lift Shafts & Spiral Staircase

These 'hidden' places have always fascinated me, right from childhood. I love the 3-D drawings; they look like something from a futuristic magazine, yet you can actually go in and explore them in real life.
(I do go 'upstairs' sometimes, on my visits to Town).

To be worthwhile you would need step free access from street level to the platforms.

The old shaft would not help.

The platforms are curved and very narrow.

Street level would be a nightmare with all the cables etc under the surface.

Ideally you would adopt a solution as proposed at Camden Town. A complete new entrance. But where? What would the property cost?

The southbound platforms access was always a matter of debate. During my time of working at Piccadilly Circus, I was shown around the disused sections of the station. I can remember that the Bakerloo lift lobby was higher than the Bakerloo Platforms and the Piccadilly line lift lobby lower than Piccadilly Platforms. I was always curious about the "platform dispatchers box" on the southbound platform, as it is partially sunken into the wall, it was my personal suspicion that this was the entrance to the southbound Bakerloo platform from the lifts, however, others stated that the entrance was via the existing staircase down to the platform.

The spiral staircase going up to the ticket hall which is blocked would need a lot of work to bring it into passenger use, as it has been used to run various wiring from ticket hall level to platforms. The spiral staircase does not go any further down and is simply blocked off to stop people loitering under the stairs. 


The lifts shafts exit was sealed off (more or less) when the original station building was demolished and was located approximately where the Little Britannia shop is. Trivia the basement entrance from Piccadilly Circus to Little Britannia was originally the connection between the old station and the newer 1920's ticket hall and escalators, it even includes a heritage sign which points towards Little Britannia as the exit.

The lift shafts have been re-purposed over the years, one is used for ventilation and has a large fan installed with ducting at the top leading outside. The other, has a room built across it at the Bakerloo lift lobby level.

One additional piece of info, there was another spiral staircase over by the lifts that went from the old station level all the way down to the Piccadilly level, the shaft still exists, but the stairs were removed many years ago.


One suggestion made by a supervisor, who previously worked at the station, was to remove the Spiral staircase and use this shaft for a lift from ticket hall level to platforms. Ticket hall to street level would be via another lift, possibly in the building formerly known as London Trocadero, which already has an entrance into the ticket hall directly.