TUBE TREASURE TROVE (T-V)

 TUBE TREASURE TROVE (T-V)

     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. 

Leslie Green – Green designed around 40 oxblood-red glazed stations in the early 1900s.

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. 

THEYDON BOIS

     Situated within Epping Forest, you might be tempted to go with the French pronunciation of bois, meaning wood or woodland.  But no: Theydon Bois is named after a former lord of the manor, Bois (previously, and variously, de Bois, de Boys or de Bosco), which rhymes with voice. Theydon is derived from the Old English for "valley where thatching materials are got". You'd expect anywhere with such a fanciful-sounding name to be twee, and it is - with a village green, bakery and two nice pubs, The Bull and The Queen Victoria. So it's ideal for a pleasant lunch in a delightful Essex village (population 3,500) - and just 23 minutes from Stratford on the Central Line. 

     The station was one of the first on the Underground network to operate without a staffed ticket office.

TOOTING BROADWAY

     The 1911 statue of Edward VII in front of Tooting Broadway station was paid for entirely by public subscription.
     Tooting Broadway station featured in the opening credits of the BBC comedy Citizen Smith with Robert Lindsay as Walter Henry "Wolfie" Smith, leader of the Tooting Popular Front.

ⓒ BBC

     On Tooting Broadway Station was on the third album by Tooting band Kitchens of Distinction:

     On Tooting Broadway station

     I lay down and slept

    The concrete for a pillow

     Fingers in bandages

Not a classic, to be honest. 

TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD

    Commissioned in 1979 and completed in 1986, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi’s mosaics at Tottenham Court Road station are among the most spectacular examples of post-war public art. Some were relocated during the extensive renovation of the station for its interchange with the Elizabeth line. 

     Also added during the major upgrade were Diamonds and Circles, works in situ (2017) by French artist Daniel Buren. (Friends might notice Bing, Tony and Kim in the right-hand picture).

    Tottenham Court Road was originally called Oxford Street (before Oxford Circus opened).

TOTTENHAM HALE

     The tiled motif at Tottenham Hale is Edward Bawden's interpretation of the 17th-century River Lea ferry crossing. Some sources say Hale comes from hailing the ferry, but it is actually derived from the Old English for to haul or hoist - this was the place on the River Lea where goods were hauled ashore for onward transport to London.

     The Ferry Boat Inn near the station has been here since the early 1700s, and is listed Grade II.

TURNPIKE LANE

     Another Charles Holden "brick box with a concrete lid", Turnpike Lane station opened in 1932 as part of the Piccadilly line extension. 

     Turnpike trusts were bodies set up in Britain in the 17th century with powers to collect tolls for maintaining roads.  At their peak in the 1830s, almost 8,000 tollgates were operating in England and Wales. The Turnpike Lane (originally Tottenham Lane) tollgate ran from 1765 until 1872. Turnpikes declined with the coming of the railways and, by 1895, all UK turnpikes had been phased out with local councils taking responsibility for maintaining main roads.

    I actually found two decent album tracks which namecheck Turnpike Lane:

Junkie Doll by Mark Knopfler - names two Underground stations:

    Turnpike Lane, Turnpike Lane

    You spiked my arm
    But you missed the vein

    Turnham Green, Turnham Green

    You took me high
    As I've ever been

    Los Angeles Waltz by Razorlight

    Maybe I'll get right out of here
    On the way back to Turnpike Lane
    Find me a girl that can calm me right down
    It's been such a f***** up year

      

UPMINSTER BRIDGE

     Upminster Bridge became an Underground station in 1969. It was actually built in 1934 as a station on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway's services from London to Southend-on-Sea. The oval crimson platform benches have been retained from the 1930s, as has the reversed swastika pattern on the ticket office floor, predating the Nazis’ commandeering of the ancient Sanskrit symbol of good fortune. Upminster Bridge is also the only London Underground station which still has a red phone box.

UXBRIDGE  

     With its curved forecourt housing a shopping parade, Charles Holden's Uxbridge Underground station sits right at the eastern end of the Piccadilly line.

      Leonard Bucknell's stylised pair of "winged wheels" are above the station entrance where there is also one of the few surviving pole-mounted roundels with line-name bars underneath.  

    The station's magnificent reinforced-concrete train shed was designed to mirror the one built five years earlier at Cockfosters at the opposite end of the Piccadilly line.

     Stained glass windows by Ervin Bossanyi can be seen in the ticket hall. They represent the Middlesex (three seaxes), Uxbridge Council (shield) and Buckinghamshire (chained swan) coats of arms.

VAUXHALL

     Vauxhall Underground's mural, designed by George Smith, illustrates the famous (and infamous) Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens that existed there between 1661 and 1859. It closed abruptly when the Victorians brought South London under the same strict licensing laws as existed north of the Thames. In its heyday, the Gardens drew enormous crowds, with its paths being noted for "amorous adventures". Tightrope walkers, hot-air balloon ascents, concerts and fireworks provided alternative entertainment. Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens still exists as a public park, with nothing racier than a city farm, tea house, allotments — and Yoga with Philippe. 

VICTORIA

     This is Edward Bawden's tiled replica of Benjamin Pearce's Queen Victoria. Unlike some of the Victoria line motifs - like Tottenham Hale and Vauxhall - there is nothing cryptic here. 

     Pearce was a Victorian silhouette artist. His profile of a young Queen Victoria became the standard cameo that was reproduced everywhere in the 19th century - on brooches, coins, medals and later in books. Bawden produced an original linocut of the Queen, but London Transport rejected it and told him to just copy the classic Pearce silhouette instead.

Tube Trivia and Addenda:

    Temple is the only station name to be shared by the London Underground and the Paris Métro.

     Because it would link Victoria with King's Cross, one of the early suggested names for the Victoria line was KingVic.

     The names of Parsons Green, Turnham Green, Stepney Green and Redbridge contain the colour of the line they stand on.