page_title: Cannon Street station
section_title: Original structure
hierarchical_section_title: Cannon Street station / History / Original structure
caption_attribution_description: Cannon Street Railway Station
context_page_description: Cannon Street station, also known as London Cannon Street, is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in Travelcard zone 1 located on Cannon Street in the City of London and managed by Network Rail. It is one of two London termini of the South Eastern main line, the other being Charing Cross, while the Underground station is on the Circle and District lines, between Monument and Mansion House. The station runs services by Southeastern, mostly catering for commuters in southeast London and Kent, with occasional services further into the latter.
  The station was built on a site of the medieval steelyard, the trading base in England of the Hanseatic League. It was built by the South Eastern Railway in order to have a railway terminal in the City and compete with the rival London, Chatham and Dover Railway. This required a new bridge across the River Thames, which was constructed between 1863 and 1866. The station was initially a stop for continental services from Charing Cross, and that route was convenient for travel between the City and the West End, until the construction of the District Railway.
context_section_description: Cannon Street station was built on a site where the Hanseatic merchants' steelyard had been based from the 10th century until 1598. The site was proposed in 1860 by the South Eastern Railway (SER) in response to its rival, the London, Chatham & Dover Railway (LC&DR), extending a line into the City of London as far north as Ludgate Hill. The SER had already made plans to extend its line towards Charing Cross, but decided that it should complement this with a terminus in the City.
  In 1861, the company obtained an act for a station in Cannon Street, a short distance from Mansion House and the Bank of England. In addition to taking traffic from the LC&DR, the new station would provide a direct railway link between the City and the West End, over which a journey could be made in a fraction of the time taken travelling by road. The approach was a 60-chain (4,000 ft; 1,200 m) branch of the line to Charing Cross, west of London Bridge. Work started on the station and its approach in July 1863.
  The station was opened on 1 September 1866 at a cost of £4 million (now £373 million). The original building was designed by Sir John Hawkshaw and John Wolfe-Barry and was characterised by its two Christopher Wren-style towers, 23 ft (7.0 m) square and 135 ft (41 m) high, which faced on to the River Thames. The towers supported an iron train shed, 700 ft (210 m) long and crowned by a high single arch, almost semicircular, of glass and iron. The station is carried over Upper Thames Street on a brick viaduct, 700 ft (210 m) long and containing 27 million bricks. Below this viaduct exist the remains of a number of Roman buildings, which form a scheduled ancient monument. The bridge was open to pedestrians between 1872 and 1877; they paid a toll of ½d.
  The five-storey City Terminus Hotel, which fronted the station, was opened in May 1867. It was an Italianate style hotel and forecourt, designed by E. M. Barry, and it provided many of the station's passenger facilities, as well as an appropriate architectural frontispiece to the street. This arrangement was very similar to that put in place at Charing Cross. The hotel was not profitable, and was over £47,000 (now £4,530,000) in debt by 1870. The City Terminus Hotel was renamed the Cannon Street Hotel in 1879. In July 1920, the hotel was the first meeting point of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Most of the hotel was closed in 1931, but the public rooms were kept open for meetings. The rest were converted into offices and renamed Southern House. The hotel is referred to in The Fire Sermon section of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land.
  Upon its opening Cannon Street station was a stopping point for all services to and from Charing Cross, including boat trains to Continental Europe. A shuttle service between the two stations ran every 20 minutes and became a popular way of travelling between the City and the West End. However, the opening of the District Railway as far as Blackfriars caused traffic to decline, and its extension to Mansion House the following year reduced it further. The SER's route could not compete with the Underground, which was more direct and reliable, but suburban traffic to Cannon Street remained popular, and the bridge was widened to 120 feet (37 m) in the late 1880s, allowing ten tracks with sidings. The rebuilt bridge was opened on 13 February 1892. The signal boxes outside the station were upgraded the following year.
  The London and Southwestern Railway (LSWR) became interested in using Cannon Street as a terminus, as it would allow a connection between Waterloo and the City.
caption: Front of original station building, c. 1910
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