From: "bill daddis" <bill.daddis@canrem.com>
Subject: closed tube stations
Reply-To: "bill daddis" <bill.daddis@canrem.com>
Organization: Canada Remote Systems
Distribution: rec
Date: 11 Dec 92 19:30:46 EST

Closed Underground (subway) stations have a certain
fascination for some of us -- no doubt there's some deep
Freudian reason why!  :-)   John Betjeman wrote a bizarre
little story about a tax collector who mistakenly alights from
his Northern Line train at South Kentish Town (closed 1924),
and then can't get out of the station...

Anyway, not long ago I picked up a little book at the London
Transport Museum shop called "The Forgotten Stations of
Greater London", by J.E. O'Conner and B.L. Halford.  Some
paraphrased extracts concerning the Tube lines follow:

BRITISH MUSEUM  (Central Line) - opened 1900, closed 1933 --
Replaced by new Central Line platforms at Holborn (Kingsway)
to allow easier interchange with the Piccadilly line.  The
platforms were removed some years ago, having been used during
the second World War as an air-raid shelter.  The street-level
building, demolished in 1989, was on the north-eastern corner
of High Holborn and Bloomsbury Court.

BROMPTON ROAD (Piccadilly Line) - opened 1906, closed 1934 --
Because of its proximity to S. Kensington and Knightsbridge
stations, some trains were scheduled not to stop at Brompton
Road after 1910.  The guard would announce at the preceding
station that the train would be "passing Brompton Road," a
phrase that became so familiar it was used for the title of a
play.  One surface building (in Leslie Green's familiar dark
red tile) remains on the corner of Brompton Rd. and Cottage
Place.  The platforms remain in situ, and the old tilework
still displays the station name.  However, a brick wall has
been built along the edges of both platforms, so the station
cannot be seen from passing trains.

CITY ROAD (Northern Line, between Angel and Old St.) - opened
1901, closed 1922 -- The tiled walls of the station remain,
but the platforms have been removed.

DOWN STREET (Piccadilly Line) - opened 1907, closed 1932 --
Used during the War as offices-cum-air-raid shelter for the
Railway Executive and the War Cabinet.  Presumably it was at
that time that walls were built along the platform edges so
that the station cannot now be seen from passing trains.  The
street-level building is on the south-western side of Down St.

EUSTON (Northern Line)  (This one's not from the book.)  Of
course this station hasn't closed, but the original,
abandoned, street-level building (another typical red tile
Leslie Green building) is still visible as you walk from the
Main Line station up towards Collectors' Corner.

KING WILLIAM STREET (City & South London Rly., long before it
became the City loop of the Northern Line!) - opened 1890,
closed 1900. -- (This one is worth a direct quote.)
"The original terminus of the world's first electric tube
railway.  The station entrance was constructed in the basement
of an existing building at No. 46 King William Street.  The
line was originally intended for cable haulage, but was
electrified instead.  The original arrangement of one track
served by arrival and departure platforms proved impracticable
in service, and was altered to a single island platform
flanked by two tracks.  It was impossible to extend the line
northward (from this station), so the line was abandoned (from
a point just north of Borough station) when the C&SL was
continued to Moorgate St. and beyond."

"The disused tunnel was the subject of a police raid in 1914,
after the editor of "The Railway and Travel Monthly" suggested
that German agents may have been hiding in it, complete with a
stash of explosives, but no doubt to the disappointment of the
press, nothing was found.  No. 46 King William St. was
demolished in 1933 to provide a site for a new office block
called Regis house, whilst the remains at track level were
swept away in 1940 to allow the station area to be converted
to an air-raid shelter.  The shelter still remains, complete
with war-time posters by the artist "Fougasse", and a section
of the white-tiled emergency stair also exists."

(The tunnels under the river are still there, I gather.  I
think I've read that they were used to store treasures from
the British Museum during WW2.  --BD)

SOUTH KENTISH TOWN (Northern Line) - opened 1907, closed 1924
-- (Located between Camden Town and Kentish Town Stns.)  The
street-level building survives, on Kentish Town Rd. near
Castle Road.  At track level, the platforms have been removed
but the tiled station walls are still visible.

YORK ROAD (Piccadilly Line) - opened 1906, closed 1932 -- (Just
north of King's Cross)  The street-level building survives on
the corner of York Way and Bingfield St.  Down below, the site
is visible from a passing train, although the tilework was
painted over in the 1960s.

--------------------------------------------------------

What, nothing on the "Bull and Bush"?   Later, maybe!

      Cheers,
                 -- Bill
--
Canada Remote Systems  - Toronto, Ontario
World's Largest PCBOARD System - 416-629-7000/629-7044
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