The Chesham Labyrinth:  No 1 on the London Underground

The story of Chesham and the Guiness World Record Tube Challenge

When next at Chesham station, take a look at the black-and-white enamel plaque on the platform wall.

In the right-hand bottom corner is a hand-rendered 1/270. The plaque is part of a permanent installation by the British artist Mark Wallinger, called Labyrinth. The London-wide project was commissioned by Transport for London in 2013, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the London Underground. Inspired by the familiar London Underground roundel, Wallinger chose the ancient symbol of the Labyrinth, with its single path, as the theme of the expansive work.

Every one of the 270 stations on the London Underground network displayed its own unique Labyrinth, each with a single route passing from the entrance marked with a red “X” to the centre. Since then, with the extension of the Northern Line, two more stations have joined the network, complete with their own Labyrinths.

A Guiness World Record

Each Labyrinth is numbered according to its order on the route taken by contestants in the 2009 Guinness World Record Tube Challenge. The task is to visit all the stations on the system in the shortest possible time. The Elizabeth Line and the DLR are not classified as part of the Underground network and are thus not included in the challenge. Participants can travel by any means of public transport to visit the stations. The train must stop at a station for the visit to count, but challengers do not need to exit the train.

The challenge has been tracked as a Guinness World Record since 1960. On 14 December 2009, Andi James, Martin Hazel and Steve Wilson achieved a time of 16 hours, 44 minutes and 16 seconds. They shaved nearly half an hour off the previous record, winning back the title they had held in 2013.

They started their epic journey at Chesham station and finished at Heathrow. Hence, Chesham’s Labyrinth has the No.1.

The time to beat

Anyone keen to take up the challenge will have their work cut out. In June 2024, a group of eight teenagers, aged 16 and 17, visited all 272 Underground stations in a phenomenal 18 hours, 8 minutes and 13 seconds. After failing twice before, the self-styled “Amersham Ambushers” flipped the order of their route to travel from Heathrow Terminal 5 to Amersham. They beat the previous record for all 272 stations by an astounding 1 hr 56 min.