page_title: Cannon Street station
section_title: Modern era
hierarchical_section_title: Cannon Street station / History / Modern era
caption_attribution_description: English: Cannon Street station viewed from The Shard, London Bridge
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: The station's twin brick towers were listed Grade II in 1972. In 1974, the station was closed for five weeks from 2 August to 9 September to enable alterations to be made to the track and the approaches to London Bridge to be resignalled. Traffic was diverted to London Bridge, Charing Cross and Blackfriars. On 4 March 1976, a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb of about 10 lb (4.5 kg) exploded on an empty commuter train leaving Cannon Street, injuring eight people on another train travelling alongside.
  On 15 February 1984, it was reported in The Times that Cannon Street was to close. At the time, the station had been closed for weekends and evenings, and the publication of British Rail's new timetable for 1984–1985 revealed that it would lose all its direct off-peak services to the south-east. Services from Sevenoaks, Orpington, Hayes, Dartford, Sidcup, Bexleyheath, Woolwich, Lewisham and Greenwich would instead terminate at London Bridge except during peak hours. This was denied by British Rail (Southern)'s manager David Kirby, who pointed out that it had invested £10 million in redecking the railway bridge, and that passengers travelling from the south-east during off-peak hours would most likely be visiting the West End and not the City.
  In 1986, the twin towers were restored in a project costing £242,000 (now £3,216,000). The works revealed that the east tower still contained a large water tank which was used during the days of steam traction to replenish locomotives and to power the station's hydraulic systems. The brickwork was repaired, cleaned and repointed, and the weather vanes gilded to complement the dome of nearby St Paul's Cathedral. This work was one of the Railway Heritage Trust's first projects and coincided with an exhibition held in the station in August of the same year to mark its 150th anniversary.
  In the 1980s, there was another property boom and British Rail again began looking into further commercial uses of the Cannon Street landspace, including 500,000 square feet (46,000 m²) of office space. The air rights over the platforms to the rear of Poulson's office were sold to Speyhawk which appointed Bovis Construction to build a free-standing structure comprising two office blocks on a 6,000 tonne steel deck constructed over the station's eight platforms. The Cannons Club, a sports club, was founded beneath the station's arches around this time, and quickly became one of the most prestigious squash clubs in the country. InterCity, the high-speed arm of British Rail, subsequently sponsored the National Squash Championships and National Squash Challenge.
  The larger office block, the "Atrium building", provides 190,000 sq ft (18,000 m²) of office space on six floors and is linked to the smaller building, the "River building", via a glazed link raised through a central glazed atrium. The River building, which has two storeys, is built on the steel deck and contained within the station's two flank walls, which were rebuilt, providing 95,000 sq ft (8,800 m²) of office space. This building projects slightly beyond the restored twin towers which form the riverside boundary to the development. The Atrium building was later let to the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (Liffe). The River building has a 1 acre (0.40 ha) roof garden. The project cost around £500,000 and was laid to comply with planning restrictions which required the building to be low and flat to maintain the sight lines from St Paul's to Tower Bridge.
  Planning permission was granted in March 2007 to replace the Poulson building, with a new air rights building designed by Foggo Associates. Hines, the US developer, led a £360 million project involving the demolition of Poulson's office block, replacing it with a mixed-use development containing more than 400,000 sq ft (37,000 m²) of office space alongside 17,000 sq ft (1,600 m²) of station retail space. The redevelopment was part of a larger regeneration programme undertaken by Network Rail to modernise and "unlock the commercial potential" of the main London t
caption: Cannon Street station seen from The Shard, showing roof garden and twin towers
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