The Waldorf Hilton is located within walking distance of Covent Garden and approximately 17 miles from London Heathrow Airport. This location bridges the West End and the Square Mile and is half a mile from London Eye ...more
The property amenities include elevators, wheelchair accessible elevators, meeting room, high speed Internet access, fitness center, indoor pool, sauna, spa, restaurant, coffee shop, lounge, and parking facilities ...more
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The Aldwych branch of the Piccadilly Line has always been strange in that although it was operated as a basic single train shuttle service from early on in its life, the line was originally built as a double track, with two platforms at Aldwych and two platforms at Holborn, only one of which connected to the North bound Piccadilly line, the other terminating in a bay platform.
Over the years, Aldwych has often felt the shadow of an overhanging axe due to low patronage and for many years had been run as a peak-hours only service. In 1994, the straw that broke the camel's back was the need to replace the old (original) lifts. Although still in good working order, the lift machinery contained exposed moving parts and high voltage components, the equipment was therefore deemed no longer safe to maintain. Since the refurbishment was estimated to cost between £3 million and £5 million, the number of people who used the station daily (about 600) couldn't justify the cost of the conversion so the line was closed.
Today, the station is being maintained by London Underground mainly as a museum piece, film set and the ticket hall is frequently rented out for art exhibitions, book launches and other private parties. The underground section will slowly deteriorate over time since little maintenance is now performed (apart from redecoration for filming!), however if you go to the surface entrance, you can peer through the gates and see that the ticket area has been restored almost to the same condition as when it was built. Even the external facade has been cleaned and painted, with the original Strand sign now prominently on display.
Aldwych is almost certainly the most "used" of the disused stations on the London Underground - today not by passengers, but by film and television companies. The fact that it's on a branch line still connected to the main network and that it's now deserted, yet at the same time being in reasonably good condition down at platform level makes the station an ideal filming location. Films and TV programmes that have used it as a location include Paramount's Patriot Games, the All Saints film Honest, the BBC production of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and pop groups for their videos such as Prodigy's FireStarter and Everlast's Black Jesus.
Aldwych station was built on land that had previously been occupied by an art gallery, a non-conformist chapel and then the Royal Strand Theatre, which was demolished in 1905 to make way for the new station. Some people have said that the station is haunted by the ghost of an actress; indeed some line engineers claim to have been frightened by a ghostly figure down at track level at night...
The station is especially interesting since there are three distinct types of passageway and platform that exist beneath the ground. There are sections of the station that were in daily use up until its ultimate closure in 1994. As mentioned previously there are also sections that fell into disuse by 1917 and remain largely untouched since then and there are other parts which were never even completed and have a rather rough look about them since they were never decorated.