The station was renamed as Aldwych in , and somehow survived nearly another 80 years despite being almost wholly redundant. From , it ran only during peak hours on weekdays, before being finally, mercifully put out of its misery in September — and then only because it was too expensive to replace the lifts.
Really, by far its most important use during its working life was to house the Elgin Marbles, which were stored in the tunnels between Holborn and Aldwych during The Blitz. Unless you plan on being cast in something soon, Hidden London remains your best way to see it. Frankly, this place was doomed from the start. South Kentish Town was dogged by low passenger numbers from the very start, and as quickly as , drivers began ignoring the need to stop there.
South Kentish Town is now home to tricky escape room Mission: Breakout, where you can puzzle out the mystery of a passenger who disappeared from the station in Knowing South Kentish Town as we do, someone probably just locked up and forgot about them…. Another station that was marked for closure early on, City Road opened in and weathered calls to shutter as early as Though most of the station was demolished in the s, the lift shaft stood standing until , when it was torn down and replaced with an energy centre.
Back on the Piccadilly line now, and as one door opens, another closes — for York Road shuttered on the same day in that the Finsbury Park to Arnos Grove section of the line opened. It was an inauspicious end to a typically gorgeous Leslie Green-designed station, which had opened in An empty stretch of town for a while, the area has now been transformed by the redevelopment of Coal Drops Yard, Granary Square, and Kings Cross in general. This has given rise to the possibility of reopening the station, although TfL remains sceptical, reportedly scared off by increasing journey times on the Piccadilly line.
Another confusing bit of history here, one born out of the marriage of the Metropolitan Railway and the District Railway see if you can guess which Tube lines they became… , which completed the so-called inner circle: now the modern Circle line. Mark Lane was opened in , to replace a short-lived station to the east known as Tower of London station, which operated for two glorious years before it was decided the site needed a larger station.
It was eventually closed in due to the influx of passengers and the impossibility of expansion. The coup de grace?
The Tower Hill station we use today actually uses the same site of the original Tower of London station — yup, the very same one Mark Lane was built to replace.
More Hidden Bits : Some information about some of the disused passages which can be observed in still active stations. Scrap Book is where you can see some additional photographic material that didn't quite make it into the web pages. Finally, if you're a regular visitor, you can see what's changed since you last visited by having a look at the Changes Page - or by clicking on the little blue icon at the top of this page.
Underground History is a living document that was started in March This means that over time more and more should be added to these pages.
In other words, bear with me and visit now and again if you're interested in this subject matter, as more material will almost certainly be appearing over time!
Also - don't forget to have a go at one of the jigsaws of images found on this site! One point to note is that in these pages, all lines are referred by their contemporary names. Many if not all of the lines have however had different names during their existence. You can navigate this site in a number of ways. You can get to key pages by clicking on the menu bar at the top left of the page.
Alternatively, at the bottom of most pages you'll also find a series of links to the main pages in text form. You may also decide to navigate the site by following the links within the nariative - indeed, many pages have been broken down into a series of smaller pages so that each individual page isn't too large for people browsing with a modem connection.
The site has been designed with a resolution of x or more in mind. It has however been designed to also work well in x In order to better understand the location of these stations on today's network, you may wish to download a copy of the world famous underground map well, technically it's a diagram not a map , originally designed by Harry Beck in and first seen by the public in January This can be found in several formats on the Transport for London web site.
Some people have asked me why I don't have a copy of the Underground map here, or more to the point, why I don't have a version of the map that shows the closed stations. I've explained this in more detail on the Frequntly Asked Questions page. Since the majority of the stations that closed in central London were abandoned after , a map of the railways as they existed in , that's been annotated to show which Underground stations have closed or changed their name since that time is available.
This page also includes some advertisements from the publication from where the map came from, showing how advertising style and standards have changed. You can print any page on this web site for personal use. If a page has the above icon showing a printer near its bottom, you can click on the icon for an optimized printer friendly version of the page to be sent to your printer or just send the page to the printer as you'd normally do. The printer friendly version will have all the navigation links removed so that the prinout is a lot freindlier to read and gives more of the experience of reading a print version of this web site rather than a clone of a web page with meaningless "click here" text all over the place.
If a page dosn't have this icon, it should now still print a lot better colours and page layout will be adjusted for printing but text won't have been optimised. Some people have had difficulty reading or seeing images on these pages. Admittedly some of the images are dark but all look presentable if the monitor is correctly set up. Here, you can find some test patterns I've generated to help you see these pages as I see them on my monitor!
Several of the images found on these pages can also be found as interactive jigsaws! Click on the jigsaw pieces to have a try. Number of unique visits to this front page since March 27 Hywel's Home Page. Note: My original email addresses that were addressed to the starfury based accounts have now been replaced by the contact page due to an increase in undesirable unsolicited and quite frankly offensive junk mail.
If you send me a request or question, I will respond in due course via email if you provide a valid email address. Disclaimer: Although dedicated to the history and background of the London Underground, these pages have no associations with London Underground , Transport for London or London Transport. I am not an employee of any of these companies and have no direct associations with them or any transport related company.
I visited all locations with permission and where appropriate supervision and permits were obtained. I certainly wouldn't advocate any attempt at visiting any of the locations featured on this web site without appropriate clearance.
It's illegal and very dangerous. It's not a good idea to pester staff at these locations about visiting - they'll almost certainly say no. Instead, consider joining a specialist society such as Subterrania Britanica , who arrange such visits on a formal basis.
Since this site was written, London Transport Museum have created a series of tours unde their Hidden London brand. Just north of White City, the eastbound Central Line trains pass under the westbound trains to travel on the right hand side.
As many people have since pointed out on social media, this happens in several places. The writer responsible has been disciplined. Anyway, back to the article: Anyway. To run through the corpses here. At one point, it had had two platforms either side of a single track, which would be in use simultaneously.
It was like a freaking rollercoaster ride or something. By this point I basically hate the tube, just so you know. The station building and platforms were demolished to make way for an expansion of the Finchley Road trunk route. That, too, closed on 19 November Help me. Wendover Yep, , Metroplitan, now Chiltern Railways. Stoke Mandeville You know the drill.
This one hides behind some trees, for some reason. Aylesbury Yes, Aylesbury was on the London Underground network until the s. Slightly less depressing station building, though. This truly is a nonsensical world in which we live. At this point we get into the realms of the really rather stupid ideas the Metropolitan Railway had back in the day.
There was Waddesdon Manor and then Quainton Road , of which we have an aerial photo to show quite how metropolitan it is today. Quainton Road was, as you can obviously tell, quite the transport hub. Bring your doggos here. Though a street view look at Verney Junction will help you understand why it made no sense for it to be part of the London Transport network. I mean come on.
Even more stupidly, there was a branch from Quainton Road out into the Buckinghamshire countryside that almost got as far as Oxford.
Though for much of its life it was known as the Brill Tramway, it was taken over by the Metropolitan Railway. Which is just brill, really. Blake Hall The next stop along was Blake Hall, which closed on 2 November , before the rest of the line, and so does not have the privilege of being part of the novelty line. I see trees of green. There are too many trees for anything to be clear. Ongar This was the terminus of the Central line until it closed on 30 September This looks like the kind of place that would give you Brexit and tell you to say thank you.
It also has the dubious accolade of being, best I can tell, the only tube station at which a pornographic film has been shot. The details are sketchy, but something saucy was filmed here in and everybody got uppity about the novelty line and station being a family destination.
King William Street And finally! So, yeah. There you go. Want more of this stuff? Follow CityMetric on Twitter or Facebook. This article is from the CityMetric archive: some formatting and images may not be present.
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