Ssssh! it’s Project X
Buried inside Twickenham Stadium’s West Stand is a location which was once a secret called Project X.
In the 1990s, when the stadium was being rebuilt under first Dudley Wood, Secretary of the Rugby Football Union, the equivalent of a CEO, and then his successor, former Royal Navy captain, Tony Hallett, plans included a couple of inscrutable items.
An RFU Committee man of 16 years, Hallett had been chairman of the grounds committee before taking over from Dudley Wood and masterminded the rebuilding. A man of considerable charm and ingenuity, he suggested to the architect, Terry Ward, not just the elusive Project X, but Project Y and Z as well.
Unsurprisingly, Project Z never got off the ground as it was an airtight walk-in humidor, for keeping cigars or tobacco moist. With smoking becoming more and more frowned upon, the idea quickly went up in smoke.
'Iconic entranceway'
However, Project Y was put forward as costed, without the actual cost appearing, and so the four player statues by the Rowland Hill Gate were signed off and created by sculptor Gerald Laing. The cost was around £250,000 and they have since become part of an iconic entranceway to the West Stand.
Project X was one which would pay for itself many times over, having in recent times become Twickenham’s most unusual and exclusive hospitality venue.
With several visiting nations being major wine growing countries, such as France, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, fine wine given as gifts was accumulating and, of course, needed a proper cellar.And so, Project X appeared on the plans, not an actual cellar but hidden away on the second floor near the Spirit of Rugby dining area, its purpose not spelled out.
'Secret Twickenham'
What it was destined to be, however, was a location with all the glamour of a set from The Three Musketeers, all it lacks is a swashbuckling Oliver Reed.
Costing around £98,000 to complete, it benefitted from the advice of Paul Morgan, who knew a thing or two about wine cellars and, as father of ex-England and Gloucester full back Olly Morgan, a thing or two about rugby as well.
Barrels hold many a fine bottle of wine along one side of the cellar, which had heavy fire doors installed to separate it from the rest of the world in front of its actual doors.
Fling those open and expect, even today when it is marketed as The Twickenham Cellar and is for hire, a moment of disbelief. There are shields of the Six Nations, cloistered brick walls, medieval style wall torches and chandeliers over a huge refectory table.
Initially, so many people packed into a wine cellar built for 15 that extra air conditioning had to be added to stop the wine being spoiled!
Now it has become the highlight of the World Rugby Museum’s Secret Twickenham Tours, which only take place on special occasions.
It is still the stadium’s most hidden treasure, cloaked in a kind of theatrical charm that makes you want to raise a glass and drink a toast to Project X.
