Image credit: Owen Tudor1 / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 2026-05-05 ↗
Leake Street Arches: the Tunnel Where Graffiti Became Legal
Waterloo · Waterloo → South Bank → Bankside · Street art / Banksy / railway infrastructure / living gallery
Story
Beneath the tracks at Waterloo is a version of London that can literally change from one day to the next. Leake Street is a roughly 300-metre tunnel whose entire surface acts as a canvas: walls, columns and ceiling accumulate layers of graffiti that continually cover one another. The point is not to hunt for one famous work, but to understand that the place is designed not to remain the same. The transformation began in 2008 when Banksy organised The Cans Festival in the former Waterloo International service tunnel, bringing together stencil artists from several countries. After the event the space consolidated its role as an authorised graffiti area. The current Leake Street Arches rules explicitly permit and encourage painting on the tunnel walls, so almost any photograph becomes outdated quickly. Walk slowly and look for layers. A painting made today may cover yesterday’s work while leaving fragments of something much older visible underneath. Leake Street’s secret is that it does not behave like a museum that preserves: it behaves like a palimpsest that is continually destroyed and rewritten.
What to look for
Overlapping layers of paint, artists at work and fragments of older pieces beneath new ones.
Secret detail
The tunnel’s value lies precisely in the fact that no work is guaranteed to survive: constant change is part of the experience.
Where exactly
Leake Street entrance from York Road/Waterloo. The pin marks the western approach to the tunnel.
Orientation
Walk through the tunnel towards Lower Marsh before turning back towards the South Bank.
Why it matters
It is a rare piece of railway infrastructure reused as a cultural space where the work is not permanent and visitors see the process, not only the result.
Access & opening
Public access can be affected by events or maintenance; use tunnel rules and current notices.
This stop works from the public exterior; no paid or interior entry is required.
We never show live status. Check opening hours before you go.
Accessibility
Level pedestrian tunnel in general, but verify entrances and event restrictions live.