The allure of abandoned Tube stations
The New Year's Day episode of Sherlock included a plot line about abandoned London Underground stations. The eerie empty platforms and booking offices have enthralled photographers.
Without revealing any spoilers, the detective drama referenced the many stations beneath London's streets that have been closed but not demolished.
Such is the allure of the mothballed stations that occasional tours of their tiled platforms, which have been left with their posters to rot, are popular with photographers, transport enthusiasts and people who are fascinated by these ghostly places below the capital.
Here are some photos from Aldwych, which operated from 1907 to 1994.
Aldwych has doubled as other tube stations in a number of films Transport for London don't pin down the exact number of disused underground stations, but say there are "in the region of 40". Some of these were relocated so their names live on, but 20 on the list won't be found on a current tube map, as this ghost map of the London Underground shows.
The station is still Grade II listed The Sherlock episode refers to a half-finished Tube stop called "Sumatra Road". In fact, there is no such station. It's a sly reference to the "giant rat of Sumatra", which is mentioned in Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire.
No need for the ticket office to be open 
Posters have been left on the platforms Real-life disused stations were used as air-raid shelters in the blitz and one, Brompton Road, was sold to the War Office in 1938 and is used by the Ministry of Defence.
It was eyed up by businessman Ajit Chambers who wanted to change the tube station into a tourist attraction, complete with a climbing wall. He hoped to utilise the 26 unused underground stations as event space.
The posters can give an indication as to when the underground stations were in operation .jpg)
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