TUBE TREASURE TROVE (I-L)
TUBE TREASURE TROVE (I-L)
This is an A–Z of London’s most interesting Underground stations. In an age where we are often looking down at our phones, Tube Treasure Trove is an invitation to look up and discover the architecture, history and oddities hiding in plain sight - on what might otherwise be a mundane journey, perhaps one made many times before.
Preface (short version):
London's Metropolitan line was the world’s first underground. Opening in 1863, it was a 3.5-mile Victorian steam railway with seven stations running from Paddington to Farringdon.
More than 160 years later, the network has grown into a living museum of architecture, engineering and graphic design. Today the Underground carries around four million passengers on a typical weekday across 272 stations.
The Visionaries
Frank Pick – The design visionary of London's transport system from 1908 until his retirement in 1940, Pick shaped the identity of the Underground more than any other individual.
Charles Walter Clark - Metropolitan Railway architect; designed around 25 stations and helped define the architectural character of the Met line and Metro-land.
Charles Holden – Holden was responsible for designing more than 50 stations during the 1920s and 1930s.
Edward Johnston – Johnston designed the distinctive Underground typeface, Johnston Sans, in 1916. It remains in use to this day. He also redesigned the famous roundel symbol. 
Harry Beck – In 1933, Beck transformed the underground map by prioritising clarity over geographical accuracy.
Roland Paoletti – As the architect behind many Jubilee Line Extension stations, Paoletti oversaw one of the most ambitious programmes of station design since the 1930s.
KENNINGTON
The platforms, styled by Frank Pick, still hark back to the 1920s with Johnston lettering signage and an original clock by the Self Winding Clock Company, New York - which doesn't self-wind as it's electric.
People who are drunk/asleep have been known to end up in Edgware, rather than in Morden after getting on a southbound Northern line train terminating at Kennington, going round a loop back to Kennington, and heading north.
KEW GARDENS
The two-storey yellow brick station buildings are unusually fine examples of mid-Victorian railway architecture and are protected as part of the Kew Gardens conservation area.
Kew Gardens is the only station on the London Underground network that has a pub attached to it - The Tap on the Line. It has a door which leads out onto platform 1. But that is no longer in use, presumably because it would bypass the automatic ticket barriers. Food (recommended) is served from 0900 to 2100. There is outside seating.
Prior to 2013, The Tap on the Line was variously known as The Railway, The Pig and Parrot and The Flower and Firkin.
The track is crossed by Kew Gardens Station Footbridge, a Grade II listed feature in its own right. It is a rare surviving example of a reinforced concrete structure built using a pioneering technique devised by the French engineer François Hennebique. The bridge has a narrow deck and very high walls, originally designed to protect its users' clothing from the smoke of steam trains passing underneath. It also has protrusions on either side of the deck to deflect smoke away from the bridge structure. Previously, a level crossing was used, with the added disadvantage of delaying trains. Now there is also a subway connecting the entrances on opposite sides of the tracks.
KING'S CROSS ST PANCRAS
King's Cross St. Pancras has six Underground lines, the most serving one station.
Like other stations on the Victoria line, platforms at KIng's Cross St Pancras have tiled motifs in the seat recesses. This 'cross of King's crowns' design is by Tom Eckersley - also the artist responsible for the motifs at Euston and Finsbury Park.
Full Circle, by Knut Henrik Henriksen, consists of two stainless steel sculptures located at the end of the concourses on the Northern and Piccadilly lines. Installed in 2009 and 2011, Full Circle were the first permanent artworks commissioned by London Underground since the 1980s.
'Full Circle' explores the ‘lost’ segment commonly found in a circular concourse truncated by the floor. Henriksen has ‘reinstated’ the lost segment, one in shot-peened stainless steel, the other in steel grid. 'Full Circle' reconsiders a common feature of the Underground with a delicate appreciation of architectural space, lost and found. Naturally, that was my first thought! Ok, they look nice - but how many of the 90 million passengers who pass through King's Cross each year see them as works of art. I certainly got some funny looks as I took the photos.
On 18 November 1987, a large fire broke out in King's Cross Underground station. Thirty-one people died, killed by the toxic fumes and extreme heat of the blaze. The fire was the result of a discarded match or cigarette igniting debris, detritus and grease beneath the wooden escalators.
See also my earlier King's Cross Station post from the dark days of covid when I visited every property on the Monopoly Board.
LEICESTER SQUARE
Leslie Green was the architect of the original station building (1906). Charles Holden designed the new ticket hall and entrances (early 1930s). The shortest distance between adjacent Underground stations is between Leicester Square and Covent Garden which are under 300 metres apart.
In its early years, offices above Leicester Square station were occupied by the publishers of the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. An image of cricket stumps and bats remains above a doorway.
Also easily missed is Pick's biscuit coloured wall tiling trimmed with an interlocking LT (London Transport) border motif. This doesn't appear anywhere else on the Underground.
The tiles representing film sprocket holes were added in the 1980s. The occasional 'opening night' roundels are a nice touch.
LEYTONSTONE
Alfred Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone in 1899. To honour the centenary of his birth the Borough of Waltham Forest commissioned a series of seventeen mosaics of the film director's life and works. The mosaics, which line the corridors leading down to the ticket barriers, were unveiled in 2001.
Rear Window Rebecca
North by Northwest Strangers on a Train
Vertigo The Birds Psycho
The Skin Game
I use Leytonstone station quite regularly and I have to say walking along the dimly lit corridors late at night can be a bit unnerving. And maybe that shower can wait till the morning.
LIVERPOOL STREET
At the start of the Blitz, the public were forbidden to use Underground stations as air raid shelters. But, on the evening of September 7 1940, a large group of citizens forced their way onto the platforms at Liverpool Street. From that date onwards the government instruction was withdrawn.
In the music video for "Taxloss" by Mansun, £25,000 in £5 notes was dropped onto commuters at Liverpool Street station.
LONDON BRIDGE
The brick arches leading into the Underground ticket hall
formed part of London's first railway station, opened in 1836. The blue glass cladding panels were inspired by an Aga cooker. London Bridge is the only station on the entire Underground network with the word “London” in its name.
LOUGHTON
Designed by John Murray Easton, Loughton station was originally built so that City workers would have easy access to Epping Forest.
Tube Trivia and Addenda:
Knightsbridge has the longest station name typed entirely with the left hand on a QWERTY keyboard.
In 1890, passengers could be fined £2 for travelling on the roof of an Underground train. London Underground’s current byelaws make it an offence to "travel on any part of a train not intended for passengers". You can be fined up to £1000 and/or prosecuted. Or die.
Answers below.
Quiz Answers:
1. Elephant and Castle
2. Baker Street
3. King's Cross
4. Northwood
5. Waterloo
6. Green Park
7. Black Horse Road
8. Eastcote
9. Angel
10. Cockfosters
11. Kilburn
12. Hyde Park Corner
13. Bank
14. Paddington
15. Old Street
16. North Greenwich
your energy and enthusiasm continue to astound me!
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