World © Geoff Wilkinson - All rights reserved
It's easy to miss this brick building on Cambridge Park, it's near the junction with Highstone Avenue. It's not a really interesting photograph but it's what was below the structure that's interesting.
In 1940 the Plessey factory in Ilford producing aircraft components including wiring and wireless sets for aeroplanes was bombed. The solution for safer manufacturing was to move everything underground. The Central Line tunnel from Leytonstone to Gants Hill had been completed but was not yet in use so that became Plessey's new factory. At one time there were around 4000 people working underground in the tunnel. The brick structure in the photograph was a ventilation shaft.
So next time you are on the Central Line at Wanstead, Redbridge of Gants Hill you'll know a little of the history.
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