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The tunnels were built in 1940 to protect Londoners from German bombs and were abandoned for 70 years until two entrepreneurs decided to plant salad 33 meters below the asphalt
In 1940, as German bombs fell on London, thousands of people rushed down to underground shelters dug tens of meters deep. The Clapham tunnels, in the south of the city, could house up to 8,000 people per night.
When the war ended, the tunnels were sealed and forgotten. For 70 years, no one went down there, until in 2015, Richard Ballard and Steven Dring had an idea that seemed crazy: to turn the tunnels into a farm.
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They founded Growing Underground, the world’s first commercial underground farm in an urban environment.
Today, 33 meters beneath one of London’s busiest streets, rows of plants grow without ever seeing the sun.
No sun, no soil, no pesticide: how plants grow in the dark
The plants grow in trays stacked on metal shelves. Instead of soil, they use hydroponics: the roots are submerged in nutrient water.
Instead of sun, special LED lamps emit exactly the wavelengths plants need for photosynthesis.
Temperature, humidity, and irrigation are computer-controlled; there are no pests, because no insect survives 33 meters underground.
Result: zero pesticide. Zero herbicide. Zero fungus. Water is recirculated in a closed circuit, spending 70% less than an open-air garden, and since the temperature down there is naturally stable, between 16 and 18 degrees all year round, the cost of climate control is minimal.
What they grow and who they sell to
Growing Underground specializes in microgreens: young shoots of arugula, cilantro, mustard, radish, and other plants.
These shoots are harvested a few days after germination, when they are at their peak flavor and nutrients.
London’s premium restaurants love the product because it arrives fresh on the same day.
Supermarket chains Tesco and Waitrose already buy from the farm.
Logistics is a natural advantage: the farm is located within London. It doesn’t need refrigerated trucks coming from another country.
From harvest to supermarket, the product can arrive in a few hours.
The partnership with the Alan Turing Institute
To optimize production, Growing Underground partnered with the Alan Turing Institute, a British center for data science and artificial intelligence.
Engineers and data scientists analyze plant information in real time. Sensors measure growth rate, nutrient absorption, and lamp efficiency.
With this data, the team adjusts conditions to maximize production with minimal resources, an example of precision agriculture done 33 meters underground.
The historical irony: from bomb shelter to farm of the future
The Clapham tunnels were designed to save lives during the war. Eighty years later, they are helping to feed the city in another way.
The infrastructure already existed. The reinforced concrete walls, ventilation, emergency accesses.
Ballard and Dring didn’t need to build anything from scratch. They simply adapted what was already there.
This reuse of historical infrastructure is a model that other cities are starting to copy.
In Paris, abandoned metro tunnels are being studied for the same purpose. In New York, the Lowline project aims to create an underground park.
Limitations of the model
The underground farm does not solve world hunger. Microgreens are a premium niche, not a staple food.
The cost of electricity for LED lamps is significant, even though they are efficient, and the production scale is still limited compared to an open-air farm.
But as a model of urban agriculture, climate-resilient and zero-waste, Growing Underground shows a way forward.
In a world where cities concentrate more and more people and agricultural lands are increasingly distant, growing under the asphalt can make sense, and who would have thought that the tunnels of the Second World War would be the future of food.
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