St John's Wood tube station

St John's Wood tube station
St. John's Wood is a London Underground station located in St John's Wood in the City of Westminster, north-west London. It was opened in 1939 as a stop on the Bakerloo line. Today St. John's Wood is served by the Jubilee line, between Swiss Cottage and Baker Street stations and is in Travelcard Zone 2. Essentially, St. John's Wood station is a local station with the nearby Metropolitan Line bypassing this station. A journey between St. John's Wood and Baker Street typically takes less than three minutes.
Location
The station building is located on the corner of Acacia Road and Finchley Road and tube maps from late 1938 and early 1939 indicate that it was originally to be given the name Acacia Road or Acacia. This station is the nearest to Lord's Cricket Ground and Abbey Road Studios. The station is therefore not to be confused with Abbey Road DLR station in east London.
History
Station origin as Lord's Tube Station
Further Information: Lord's Tube Station
In 1868, the original Tube network extended from St John’s Wood to Swiss Cottage stopping at St John’s Wood and Marlborough Road. St John’s Wood station was right next to Lord’s Cricket Ground and during matches, it even had its own ticket office at the ground. The following year, the Finchally Line tried to extend to Finchley Road in order to get a bigger catchmatch area, but it was not successful. Eventually, they wanted to extend the line to West Hampstead, but were not successful at doing so.
Transfer from Lord's to St John's Wood
St John’s Wood Station was not always named St John’s Wood and nor was it always in the same location. The original station in St John’s Wood was named St John’s Wood Road, then St John’s Wood and finally Lords , which was on the Metropolitan Line. and it was originally used to store milk and frozen food while some other nearby stations were used in order to simply game golf. Lord’s was once the only station that allowed customers to park their cars on the roof instead of in a ground-level lot or parking garage.
Right after the start of World War II, Lord’s was renamed to St John’s Wood and the new station served the present-day Bakerloo line. Meanwhile both Lord’s and nearby Marlborough Road shut down due to the close proximity.
During the Second World War, the station was used as a shelter and even had apartments (or flats as they call them in the UK) that had rooms for servants. There were over 100 thousand people that were spending the night there but the facility choices were very limited. Most of the recreational facilities were a short Tube ride away near present day Finchley Road. Despite this, there were still canteens, libraries, bunks and drinking water.
The station was opened on 20 November 1939 on a new section of deep-level tunnel constructed between Baker Street and Finchley Road when the Metropolitan line's services on its Stanmore branch were transferred to the Bakerloo line. The new station replaced two nearby stations on the Metropolitan line which had closed the previous day. These were Lord's (originally named St. John's Wood Road, then St. John's Wood and, finally, Lord's) and Marlborough Road.
The station was transferred along with the rest of the Stanmore branch to the Jubilee line when it opened on 1 May 1979.
The station building designed by Stanley Heaps is Grade II listed.
The platform design remains the same as when opened in 1939, as designed by Harold Stabler. In 2006, the tiles were cleaned up and replaced.
Transfer from Bakerloo Line to Jubilee Line
After the start of World War II, Lord's station closed and was replaced by St John's Wood, which was on the Stanmore branch of the Bakerloo line. At the time, there were two branches of this line: the Stanmore Branch and the Watford branch, although getting to Watford required a change at Harrow and Wealdstone. In 1979, the Jubilee line was opened and replaced the Stanmore branch of the Bakerloo line while the Watford branch remained the Bakerloo line.
Services
Train frequencies vary throughout the day, but generally operate every 2–5 minutes between 05:54 and 00:18 in both directions. During some events at Lord's Cricket Ground, this station sometimes becomes exit only. Other nearby stations are Maida Vale, Warwick Avenue, Swiss Cottage and Baker Street.
Today, Wifi is available in the station which means it is easier for people to stay connected on the go. Additionally, with the rise of Amazon, machines, nearby ticket stores and the ability to use a contactless payment card, the ticket offices have closed down. Back in 2015, TFL had a huge cut of funds from the government so they needed to find a way to earn more funds without raising the fares. They even predicted that new Oyster Card shops would help increase their revenue.
Up-lighters
Up-lighters are lights that are seen along the escalator as a way to help see and provide light all the way from the street to the platform. It also helps keep the passengers in line with where they are going at all times. The up-lighters date back to 1939 when the station first opened.
Incidents
In the spring of 2021, there was an incident where a passenger was found on the tracks due to a faulty train. It led to life-changing injuries and the individual was taken to the hospital. There was nothing suspicious going on but police and fire officers were sent to St John’s Wood station in order to investigate the issue. This caused the Jubilee line to be suspended and then it was running on severe delays due to the incident.
Accessibility
There is one gate inward and one gate outward from the Tube that is big enough to fit a buggy or wheelchair. The station is not step free and the only way to access the platforms is by escalator or stairs. Prior to 1993, it was illegal to have a wheelchair anywhere on the London Underground due to fire safety concerns.
Connections
London Buses routes 13, 46, 113, 187 and night route N113 stop outside the station. Coach routes 712, 755, 757, 758, 768, 771, 772, 797 and A6 also serve the station. London Buses routes 139 and 189 serve Abbey Road. 13, 113 and N113 travel south towards Central London while 46 and 187 travel towards Maida Vale. Northbound, 13, 113 and N113 travel towards the Golder's Green and Brent Cross, while 46 travels towards Hampstead and Kings Cross and 187 ends at the O2 Center.
The destinations of the busses outside of St John's Wood Station are
13: North Finchley & Victoria
113: Edgware & Marble Arch
46: St Bartholomew's Hospital & Paddington
187: O2 Center & Central Middlesex Hospital
From Abbey Road, 139 travels between Goldners Green and Waterloo and 189 travels between Brent Cross and Marble Arch.
Route 274 stops in the Western part of the neighborhood and runs from Islington Angel to Lancaster Gate.
Nearby points of interest
Abbey Road Studio
Lord’s Cricket Ground
MCC Museum
St John’s Wood Park
London Central Mosque
Regents Park
The Star turned into a gastropub and is no longer named the Star, but it was around for 200 years until it closed in 2015.
In popular culture
The station appeared in the music video for "Bedsitter" by Soft Cell.
The recording of the underground train heard at the beginning and end of The Jam's 1978 song "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" was recorded at St John's Wood.
A common trivia question is, "Which London Underground station does not contain any of the letters in the word "mackerel"? The answer is St John's Wood, which does not contain any of the letters A-C-E-K-L-M-R. This is only true because the word "Saint" is always abbreviated "St" in the name, and because Hoxton is on the London Overground but not the Underground. Victoria Coren Mitchell described this as her favourite trivia question. Two former stations also fulfill the mackerel test: Wotton and Wood Siding, which were part of the Underground network between 1933 and 1935.
References
External links
London Transport Museum Photographic Archive
Jubilee line stations
London Underground Night Tube stations
Tube stations in the City of Westminster
Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1939
Tube station