Brompton Road Tube - the defunct station which became a key WW2 command centre - up for sale for £20m

Hidden in one of London's most exclusive areas is Brompton Road tube station - a defunct building key to protecting London during the Blitz.

With its yellowed walls and blackened signs, it is hard to imagine the station was once a military hub packed with army officers tasked with saving millions of lives.

But the Underground station - just a stone's throw from Harrods - is now up for sale for £20m, in a Ministry of Defence bid to cut costs.

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The MoD is looking to relocate the building's current occupants - youngsters aspiring to join the RAF and the Royal Navy.

Brompton Road station opened in 1906 on the Piccadilly Line but closed 28 years later as passenger numbers fell.

The 28,000 square foot building got a new lease of life in 1938 when it was purchased by the War Department and converted to the headquarters of the Army's 1st Anti-Aircraft Division.

Officers were charged with protecting London from incoming German bombers.

It is also thought to be the place where Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy, was questioned after he flew by himself to Scotland in 1941 to unsuccessfully negotiate peace.

MORE PICTURES OF BROMPTON ROAD TUBE STATION:a


Now the only remnants left of the site's military past are a map showing the capital's anti-aircraft battery areas, ammunition signs and a weapons rack.

Julian Chafer, an MoD surveyor who has been working on the building, said: "Although I'm not a military historian, I imagine that down here it would have been the same sort of thing as you see in wartime films.

"There would have been maps on the walls, there would have been perhaps an operations table and perhaps a scale model of part of the city, actually physically moving scale models about with the anti-aircraft batteries so people could envisage exactly where they were in the city."

The building is expected to command a high price when the opportunity to bid is opened up to buyers in September.

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It still has the distinctive green and brown wall tiles which are particular to the Underground's historic stations.

Potential owners hoping to beat the rush hour commute will be disappointed as the platforms and tunnels are closed off and owned by the Tube.

Mr Chafer, 47, said: "It's in a prime location, we've got (Grade II*-listed) Brompton Oratory next door, Harrods just down the street, so - subject to what planning authorities say - I think it is likely to be a residential development above ground.

"Quite what happens down here with this site is anybody's guess."