The London Transport Museum is launching a new family-focused edition of its Hidden London tour of the disused Aldwych tube station, specifically designed to engage children aged 10 to 14 while remaining open to older youngsters and adults. The “Aldwych: End of the Line (Family Edition)” marks the first Hidden London tour created expressly for families, following the museum’s decision in 2024 to lower the minimum age for all its underground tours from 14 to 10 years old.
The tour adapts the museum’s long-running “Aldwych: End of the Line” experience, which has been taking visitors behind the station’s locked doors since 2016. Families will explore the abandoned former Piccadilly line terminus — originally opened as Strand Station in 1907 and renamed Aldwych in 1915 — which closed to passengers in 1994 after decades of low ridership. The station’s Edwardian Baroque design, by architect Leslie Green, is recognised with Grade II listed status, and its condition has made it a sought-after filming location for productions including Superman IV, V for Vendetta, 28 Weeks Later and Atonement.
The interactive elements are designed to immerse younger visitors in the station’s layered past, from its Edwardian origins to its role as an air-raid shelter during both world wars and its later cinematic use. Throughout the tour, children and adults work together to solve riddles, uncover clues and unlock different chapters of the station’s history. Guides use accessible language and storytelling to explain how the space evolved, drawing on oral testimonies that help bring the past to life. Sensory elements include smell jars and hands-on objects linked to the station’s wartime history, allowing visitors to imagine what it was like to shelter underground during bombing raids. During World War II, the tunnels housed valuable artworks from institutions such as the British Museum and the National Gallery — including the Elgin Marbles — and hosted concerts and plays on the platforms to boost morale.
The tour takes visitors through the station’s original platforms, ticket hall and distinctive wooden lifts — the only remaining wooden lifts on the entire London Underground network. The family edition runs alongside the existing “Aldwych: End of the Line” tour as part of the Hidden London summer programme, operating Wednesday to Sunday from July 16 to August 30, 2026.
Tickets for the family edition are priced at £43.50 for children and £46.50 for adults. Each ticket includes half-price one-day entry to the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden within a month of the tour date, plus a 10% discount on full-priced items in the museum shops. Tickets are available from the London Transport Museum website. Profits from all Hidden London tours support the museum’s charitable work in conserving and sharing London’s transport and design heritage.
