page_title: Farringdon station
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Farringdon station / History
caption_attribution_description: Farringdon station on the Metropolitan Railway, London.
context_page_description: Farringdon is a London Underground and connected main line National Rail station in Clerkenwell, central London. The station is in the London Borough of Islington, just outside the boundary of the City of London. It was opened in 1863 as the terminus of the Metropolitan Railway, the first underground passenger railway and Farringdon is one of the oldest surviving underground railway stations in the world.
  Today the Underground station is served by the Circle, Hammersmith & City, and Metropolitan lines between King's Cross St Pancras and Barbican. The National Rail station is on the Thameslink route between St Pancras and City Thameslink, and is due to become an interchange station between Thameslink and the Crossrail programme which is due for completion in 2021.
context_section_description: The station was opened on 10 January 1863 as the terminus of the original Metropolitan Railway, the world's first underground metro line. The station, initially named Farringdon Street, was originally a short distance from the present station building. The line ran from the Farringdon area to Paddington, a distance of 4 mi (6 km).
  The station was relocated on 23 December 1865 when the Metropolitan Railway opened an extension to Moorgate. It was renamed Farringdon & High Holborn on 26 January 1922 when the new building by the architect Charles Walter Clark facing Cowcross Street was opened, and its present name was adopted on 21 April 1936. It was built in conjunction with a freight station to take livestock to a slaughterhouse to its south-east to supply Smithfield Market; remains of cattle ramps on a street outside the market, West Smithfield. Smithfield was redesignated as a wholesale 'deadmeat' market in the 19th century and the freight station was last used in the 1920s.
  The lines from Farringdon towards King's Cross St. Pancras run alongside the Fleet ditch, culverted since 1734. The station building is unusually well-preserved early 20th-century London Underground architecture. It retains indications of the Metropolitan Railway's main-line style operation such as a sign for a parcel office on the outer wall and some original signage, with the 1922–1936 name on the facade.
  After the bay platforms at Blackfriars closed on 21 March 2009, Southeastern services that previously terminated at Blackfriars were extended to Kentish Town, St. Albans, Luton or Bedford, calling at this station. Thameslink trains to Moorgate ceased at the same time.
caption: The Metropolitan Railway's second Farringdon station, 1866.
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