UNDERGROUND STATIONS

See Also: AN OLE IN OLBORN; POP & ROCK Busking; PUBS Sloane Square Underground Station; RAILWAY STATIONS; SUBTERRANEAN; TRANSPORT; UNDERGROUND LINES

Architects

Leslie Green

Leslie Green created an individual style of tiles for each station.

Charles Holden

All but two of Charles Holden's stations were surface work. At Gant's Hill he designed barrel-vaulted halls, while at Piccadilly Circus he did a single level down.

Holden s architectural style has been termed Medieval Modernism. He had a preference for using local materials. He had a passion for detailing.

Charing Cross Underground Station

Just before the steps down to the north bound platform Bakerloo Line at Charing Cross Station. Airtight door gives access to a tunnel that reputedly leads to Buckingham Palace.

Location: Strand, WC2N 5RJ (yellow, grey)

Escalators

Angel Underground Station

Angel Underground Station has Europe's longest escalator.

Location: Angel Underground Station, Islington High Street, N1 8XX (orange, purple)

Piccadilly Circus Underground Station

Colin MacInnes's (1914-1976) novel City of Spades (1957) has a section about meeting everyone you know on the escalators of Piccadilly Circus Underground Station.

Location: Piccadilly Circus Underground Station, W1J 9HP (purple, turquoise)

Euston Underground Station

At Euston Underground Station the northbound Northern and Victoria Lines are on parallel platforms at the same level. However, the two Lines run in opposite directions. The Northern heads westwards and the Victoria eastwards.

Location: Eversholt Street, NW1 2DU (red, turquoise)

Floors

Reversed Swastikas

There are reversed swastikas designed into the floor pattern at Upminster Underground Station.

Location: Upminster Underground Station, Station, RM14 2TD

Ghost Stations

The mothballed (or ghost) underground stations include British Museum, which is on the Central Line between Holborn and Tottenham Court Road. Its platforms can sometimes be distinguished if a Tube train is passing slowly between its two sisters.

Website: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/culture-and-heritage/london-transport-a-history/london-underground/disused-underground-stations

Aldwych

The former Aldwych Underground Station (1907) was opened to serve theatre-goers.¹ However, the focus of London's theatreland shifted westwards subsequently to Shaftesbury Avenue. In 1994 the Piccadilly Line station was closed. It has been used as a movie location.

Location: (168) Strand, WC2R 1ES (purple, blue)

See Also: WEST END THEATRES Strand

Website: www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whats-on/hidden-london/aldwych

¹. Initially, the station was called Strand.

Brompton Road

Brompton Road closed in 1934. The Ministry of Defence sold the building in 2014 for 53m.

Location: Brompton Road, SW3 2BQ (purple, brown)

Down Street

Down Street Underground Station (1907) is on the Piccadilly Line between Green Park and Hyde Park Corner. Being located in one of the wealthiest sections of London, it received a limited amount of custom; if people could afford to live in Mayfair they were unlikely to use the Underground. Many of its potential customers - the servants on their days off - preferred to use either Hyde Park Corner or Green Park.¹ Harry Beck did not include the station on the 1931 prototype of his diagram of the London Underground system. It was closed the following year.

During the Second World War Down Street was sometimes used as an air-raid shelter by the War Cabinet. Winston Churchill nicknamed it 'The Burrow'. It was one of the few places where his sleep was uninterrupted by the sound of falling bombs. The facility stopped being used as a shelter once the Cabinet War Rooms had been constructed.

Location: Down Street, W1J 7JU (orange, pink)

See Also: WINSTON CHURCHILL The Cabinet War Rooms

Website: www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whats-on/hidden-london/down-street

¹. Green Park Underground Station was known formerly as Dover Street.

Mark Lane

Seething Lane is the remnant of Mark Lane.

Location: Byward Street, EC3R 5AS. There is a set of descending steps that are accompanied by sky blue walls. (orange, lime green)

Museum Station

In the basement of 131 High Holborn is a sealed entrance to Museum Station.

Location: 131 High Holborn, WC1V 6PS (purple, brown)

Labyrinths

There is a labyrinth design in every station. They are placed in a standard position. Each one is unique. 270 were commissioned. Mark Wallinger was the principal artist.

Mind The Gap

The first voice to say 'Mind The Gap' was that of Peter Lodge, a sound engineer. The recording entered service in 1969.

Phil Sayer (né Clift) (1953-2016), a 'Mind The Gap' announcer for the Jubilee, Northern, and Piccadilly Lines, was given an obituaries in national newspaper following his death in 2016. Among station staff he was referred to as Metal Mickey.

A Minded Mind The Gap

Structural engineering considerations have caused the platforms of some Underground stations to be built so that their trackside edges are curved. Therefore, when a Tube train stops at them, to allow travellers either to board or to leave, there can be spaces between their lips and the carriages' portals. In 1969 pre-recorded 'Mind the gap' announcements started to be played in order to draw Tube-users' attention to the yawning maws. The first voice that was heard belonged to Peter Lodge, a sound engineer.

The individual Tube lines have different announcements and indeed different stations along a track can play distinct recordings. The actor Oswald Laurence enunciated one for the Northern Line. The thespian died in 2001. As the line's public address systems were updated so his declaration was progressively withdrawn from use. Embankment Underground Station was the last place where his voice could be heard. His widow used to go there so that she could hear his disembodied speech. However, the station's system was finally upgraded. Mrs Laurence contacted London Underground to ask if she could have a C.D. of her husband s work. TfL not only found a copy of the announcement but also recommenced playing it at Embankment.

Location: Embankment Underground Station, Embankment Place, WC2N 6NS (purple, pink)

Mornington Crescent Underground Station

Mornington Crescent is a nonsensical game that often forms a round in I m Sorry I Don t Have A Clue, a Radio 4 comedy panel show. The segment was devised by Geoffrey Perkins. It involves the contestants announcing the name of an underground station or somewhere that sounds as though it could be an underground station. The purpose of the game is that one of them should arrive at Mornington Crescent. However, the rules by which it is played are various and somewhat opaque.

Location: Eversholt Street, NW1 2JA (orange, white)

See Also: RADIO B.B.C. Radio, Radio 4, Just A Minute; UNDERGROUND LINES The Northern Line

Website: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnwb

Paoletti's Pearls

Previously, London Transport had regarded engineering and architecture as being separate disciplines. Architects 'fit out' spaces that had been determined by civil engineers. Norman Foster had described this approach as being analogous to 'putting lipstick on the face of a gorilla'. The Victoria Line's stations were held in poor regard by some. Paoletti regarded the engineers as 'trench-diggers'. He chose to break with the existing practice.

The construction of the Jubilee Line extension was overseen by Roland Paoletti (1931-2013), who was relatively known in Britain despite being London and British educated. After a period working for Basil Spence, he had spent most of his career working overseas. He had been the chief architect of Hong Kong's Mass Transit Authority system. As such, he had worked the direction of Sir Wilfrid Newton. In 1989 the knight was appointed to be the Chairman of London Underground.

The King's Cross Fire of 1987 meant that London Underground was required to place a high priority upon space and capacity in the Extension's stations.

Newton, whose professional background was in accountancy, ringfenced the Extension s budget thereby preventing broader financial factors from undermining it.

Paoletti opted to have the eleven stations designed leading contemporary architects. Canada Water, London Bridge and the new ticket hall at Waterloo were the work of Paoletti and his team. These assignments were regarded as being harder and less glamorous to undertake than the others. Some architectural critics regard Canada Water as having a strong echo of the Mass Transit Authority's stations.

In Hong Kong financial considerations had forced Paoletti to not implement the original designs for stations.

The architects whom he selected had a good understanding of civil engineering and proved to be able to work closely with engineers.

Bermondsey, Canada Water, Canada Wharf, Canning Town, North Greenwich and Southwark were new stations, Green Park, London Bridge, Waterloo, West Ham and Westminster were either enlargements or rebuilds.

Foster s Canary Wharf was the centrepiece. The ticket hall is a homage to the Italian architect and engineer Pier Luigi Nervi, for whom Paoletti had worked for several years. The escalators were the work of David Nelson, who was a long-time associate of Paoletti.

The Architectural Review dubbed Paoletti the Medici of London Transport .

Bermondsey - Ian Ritchie

Westminster - Michael Hopkins

The construction of Jubilee Line extension caused Big Ben to tilt by 1.5 inches.

Southwark - Richard MacCormac (1938-2014) of MacCormac, Jamieson & Prichard. He designed Southwark Underground Station for the Jubilee Line Extension. The design was based on a set that the 19^th C Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel had created for a production of Mozart's The Magic Flute. The atrium is a sweeping blue arc. It is topped by a flying saucer lantern. This is a reference to Charles Holden s designs for underground stations.

Canada Water - Ron Herron

Canary Wharf - Norman Foster

No. 1 Canada Square could be contained horizontally with Canary Wharf station.

The Extension came in over budget. However, the stations were responsible for only a small amount of the overall discrepancy.

Queensbury Underground Station

There was a competition to name the next stop after Kingsbury. Queensbury was chosen.

Location: Cumberland Road, HA8 5NP

Sloane Square Underground Station

There used to a bar set into the wall of the westbound platform of Sloane Square underground platform.

Location: Sloane Square, Chelsea, SW1W 8BB (purple, grey)

See Also: PUBS

The Smoking Ban

In 1984 smoking was banned on the Underground system. This followed a fire that had occurred in Oxford Circus Underground Station.

See Also: CIGARETTES

Station Name Changes

In 1937 Post Office Underground Station was renamed St Paul's. The former St Paul's became Blackfriars.

Location: Blackfriars Underground Station, Blackfriars Road, EC4V 4DD (orange, brown)

St Paul's Underground Station, Cheapside, EC2V 6BJS (red, white)

See Also: LONDON Street Names and Place Names; ROADS Turnpikes

Synesthetic Identities

There is speculation that there may be up to 150 types of synaesthesia. It has been estimated that about one in 25 people have some form of it. There is often a genetic component for those people who become aware of it early in life.

The neurologist Professor Guy Leschziner of Guy's and St Thomas's Hospitals encountered a man called James, whose synaesthesia led him to experience particular tastes whenever he passed through particular Underground stations. Tottenham Court Road tasted of sausage, eggs, and toast. The tastes that he experienced as a child maintained their association decades later.

Temple Underground Station

While waiting for an Underground train at Temple Underground Station Baroness Orczy had a vision in which she encountered the Scarlett Pimpernel as a fully-formed character. She wrote her first novel about him in five weeks.

Location: Victoria Embankment, WC2R 2PH (purple, pink)

Turnpike Lane Underground Station

Frank Pick adored Turnpike Lane Underground Station.

Location: Westbury Avenue, N15 3NX

What's In A Name

Bank Underground Station

Bank is the only tube station that has a one syllable name.

Location: Princes Street, EC3V 3LA (orange, white)

Vowels

The two Underground stations that have name that contain all of the vowels are Mansion House and South Ealing.

Location: Mansion House Underground Station, 38 Cannon Street, EC4N 6JD (purple, brown)

South Ealing Underground Station, South Ealing Road, W5 4QB

Whitechapel Underground Station

Whitechapel Underground Station has the singular distinction of being the only tube station where the track is physically higher than the neighbouring railway line.

Location: 277 Whitechapel Road, E1 1BY (blue, white)

David Backhouse 2024