TUBE TREASURE TROVE (M-O)
TUBE TREASURE TROVE (M-O)
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.
MAIDA VALE
In 1915, during WWI, Maida Vale became the first Tube station to be "manned" entirely by women. However, the station had a male stationmaster - "shared with three other stations". The women were paid the same rate as men - sixty years before the Equal Pay Act.
MARBLE ARCH
MOORGATE
From mid-1914, the Metropolitan Railway introduced its own version of the Underground roundel with a blue station nameplate across a red diamond. This replica is one of several installed at Moorgate for the "Tube 150" celebrations in 2013.
On 28 February 1975, a southbound train crashed into the tunnel end beyond the platform at Moorgate station. Forty-three people were killed in what was the greatest loss of life on the Underground in peacetime. Seventy-four people were seriously injured. As the driver, Leslie Newsom, was one of those killed, the cause of the crash was never conclusively determined, and an accidental death verdict was recorded at the official inquest.
Important changes were made to train operation in the wake of the Moorgate crash. Most importantly, an automatic-stop system was installed at all termini. This triggers the emergency brakes if a train approaches the end of a tunnel at more than 12.5 mph.
MOOR PARK
Moor Park was originally called Sandy Lodge when it opened in 1920, after the Sandy Lodge Golf Course. It was the only station completely rebuilt in the modernisation of the Metropolitan Line in 1961 and was the first new station to open on the Underground since the 1940s. Considering this, it's hardly a design classic. But it does have some nice posters. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the roundel in 2008, Art on the Underground commissioned 100 artists to produce new works celebrating the design icon. Some of them remain on display at Moor Park ...
More roundel art to follow at Stanmore station.
MORNINGTON CRESCENT
Willie Rushton is honoured by a blue plaque at Mornington Crescent station, a reference to the absurd radio game on the BBC’s I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. For the last twenty-two years of his life, Rushton was a panellist on the comedy show. Despite the plaque, Rushton had no residential connection with Mornington Crescent. The same can be said of the show's host, Humphrey Lyttleton (1921-2008), - but the pub opposite the station is named after him.
In one of those quirks of the Underground network, Mornington Crescent has its very own section of the Northern Line.
In 1992, the station was closed so that the lifts could be replaced, with the intention of reopening it within a year. However, due to lack of funding and the station’s state of neglect, it remained closed for six years. A campaign to reopen the station was launched, with pressure from Camden Council and support from I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. The refurbished Mornington Crescent station was eventually reopened in 1998 by Rushton, Lyttelton and fellow regular panellists Barry Cryer, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden.
NEWBURY PARK
The rather underwhelming entrance to Newbury Park station is via Oliver Hill's impressive copper-covered vaulted bus station which won a Festival of Britain architecture award in 1951. The bus shelter is "Grade II" listed. The station isn’t. Ironically, the bus shelter is only used by three routes, so has far less footfall than the Central line station. Still, you can get your kicks on Route 66 (double decker).
NOTTING HILL GATE
OAKWOOD
Oakwood, with its cavernous ticket hall, is a fine example of a Charles Holden station. At the front of the Grade II* listed building there is a distinctive mushroom shelter with seating beneath and an advertising roundel above on a long pole.
The booking hall originally had a plaque claiming that the station occupied ‘the highest point in Europe in a direct line west of the Ural Mountains of Russia’. Or - 300 feet above sea level.
OLD STREET
For a few days in 2024 Old Street Underground station became Fold Street station, thanks to a Samsung campaign to launch its Galaxy Z Fold6 and Flip6 phones.
Samsung commissioned designer Jem Hughes to create the bench, phone box and lamp post which briefly appeared next to the station.
Despite Samsung's elaborate advertising hype, which also included this bus in Spitalfields, -sales of foldables continue to be rather flat.
OSTERLEY
Osterley is yet another Charles Holden station, designed by Stanley Heaps following Holden's preliminary plan. The Brutalist brick tower topped with a concrete obelisk was possibly inspired by the De Telegraaf building in Amsterdam.
The original concrete station-name holders remain, with their poster frames and built-in lamps. Sitting alongside the Great West Road and not far from Heathrow, it could hardly be called serene.
OVAL
The Kia Oval cricket ground is not oval. But it does have its own Underground station, also not oval. The ground is actually round, but was built on what was formerly an oval paddock for growing vegetables. It has been Surrey's cricket ground since it opened in 1885. Surrey still play there - although The Oval was last within the boundaries of Surrey in 1899. Please try to keep up.
The booking office has some nice cricket tiles. 
Oval and Bank are the two shortest Underground station names.
OXFORD CIRCUS
Ox-blood tiles - Oxford Circus has to be a Leslie Green station, built in 1906. It is the fourth-busiest station on the London Underground.
It is the only Underground station to have retained its original tiled signage, including a cartouche bearing the Underground Electric Railways (UERL) company insignia.
Hans Unger's Victoria line platform tiles represent the three lines that intersect here - Victoria, Bakerloo and Central - with the white Tube circle.
There is also surviving mosaic artwork, on both the Bakerloo and Central line platforms by artist Nicholas Munro, dating from the 1980s.
The Bakerloo design depicts a garden maze, while the Central line design incorporates Snakes and Ladders. Most of the artwork was subsequently replaced by white tiling, but these sections survive.
Tube Trivia and Addenda:
Mansion House station and South Ealing station are the only station names containing all five vowels.
Morden is the most southerly Underground station.
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