Londonist: Subterranean Dwellers
The Saturday Strangeness
67. Subterranean Dwellers
As a child I was always peeping from the stairs at the latest horror movie my mum and dad had hired. One such shocker was the 1972 Brit-flick ‘Deathline’, also known as ‘Raw Meat’, which concerned the horrific rumour that a race of cannibals were existing under the streets of London, and their acts of carnage taken out on all manner of victims such as tramps, drunks, city workers and pets. Author Michael Goss looked into the legend on several occasions and concluded that although primal or neglected humans may not be loitering in the underground, belief in such dwellers was indeed once rife.
The sewers and disused tunnels beneath the capital are a world away from the hustle and bustle of the city. As tourists flock to commercialism, workers rush to their towering blocks of business, and shoppers scuttle like rats to their next retail high, below their feet is alleged to exist a seedy, brutal world beyond the imagination of mundanity.