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| Friday, 21-May-2004 00:00 |
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Silver Jubilee: Westminster
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Concrete catacombs
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Platform-edge doors
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Portcullis House
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Opened: Thursday 24th December 1868
Jubilee line platforms opened: Tuesday 22nd December 1999 (the most recent new platforms on the Underground network)
Distance from previous station: 1.3 km
Platform (eastbound): exit to the left of the train
Platform (westbound): exit to the right of the train
Change here for: District and Circle lines
Station originally called: Westminster Bridge
Fact file: Rebuilding Westminster station to accommodate the Jubilee line was an engineering nightmare, restricted by the close proximity of the Houses of Parliament and the River Thames. Great care had to be taken to prevent Big Ben from toppling (the solution involved meticulous injections of liquid cement and 'compensation grouting'). The District line platforms had to be lowered by half a metre, beneath those went the eastbound Jubilee tunnel, and beneath that the westbound tunnel. A deep narrow cavern was excavated 32 metres downwards beneath Portcullis House, filled with interlocking escalators, concrete struts and concourses. It's quite magnificent, like a giant grey game of snakes and ladders.
This is my station: I descend three levels down from the District line into the bowels of the earth every morning, but ascend back only two levels in the evening. And yes, I never fail to be impressed by the stunning architecture as I pass through.
5 things I found outside this station: Big Ben (OK, St Stephen's Tower), the Houses of Parliament, Portcullis House, the River Thames, tight security.
Nearby: Westminster Abbey, Westminster Hall, Whitehall, the Cenotaph, democracy (apparently)
Local history: No no no, national history.
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| Monday, 17-May-2004 00:00 |
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Silver Jubilee: Charing Cross
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The Jubilee line platforms are now blocked off behind this wall
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Eleanor Cross
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Trafalgar Square
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Opened: Saturday 10th March 1906
Jubilee line platforms opened: Tuesday 1st May 1979
Jubilee line platforms closed: Friday 19th November 1999
Distance from previous station: 1.1 km
Change here for: Bakerloo and Northern lines
Station originally called: Trafalgar Square and/or Strand
Fact file: London's most recently abandoned tube station. The first photo shows the wall built five years ago at the bottom of the main escalators to block off the Jubilee platforms from the rest of the station.
12 things I found outside this station: Charing Cross mainline station, an Eleanor Cross, the Strand, a vast shabby white-tiled 70s subway, Trafalgar Square, not many pigeons, Sir Henry Havelock on a plinth, St Martin-in-the-Fields church, the South African embassy, a group of scary Morris dancers, a memorial to Oscar Wilde, the point from which all 'distances from London' are measured.
Nearby: Nelson's Column, the National Gallery, Admiralty Arch, The Mall, Whitehall, Embankment station.
Local history: King Edward I erected a monument here in 1293 to mark the last resting place of his wife's funeral cortege. Cromwell pulled down the original Eleanor Cross in 1647, so the present stone spire in the station forecourt is a Victorian replacement. Of Edward's 12 original crosses along the route from Lincoln to London, only those at Geddington, Hardingstone and Waltham Cross survive.
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| Sunday, 16-May-2004 00:00 |
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Silver Jubilee: Green Park
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Green Park tiling
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Green Park
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Jubilee line diagram
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Opened: Saturday 15th December 1906
Jubilee line platforms opened: Tuesday 1st May 1979
Distance from previous station: 1.5 km
Platform: exit to the right of the train
Change here for: Piccadilly and Victoria lines (actually, don't change here for the Piccadilly line because you have to walk for ages down a really long passage)
Station originally called: Dover Street
Fact file: All the tiling on the platforms is orange, not Green.
This is my station: I commute to Green Park station every morning, and I have this station sussed. I was the first person up the Jubilee line escalators on four days out of five last week. Hundreds of commuters behind me, and no running thankyou. I am the Green Park champion, I am.
5 things I find outside this station: the grinning lady who blocks the station exit trying to hand out free magazines, Piccadilly, the smiley bloke who sells me my Evening Standard, the Benjy's where I often buy lunch, a surprisingly high proportion of posh men wearing bow ties and dinner jackets.
Nearby: Green Park, my office, the Ritz, Langan's Brasserie, Buckingham Palace.
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| Saturday, 15-May-2004 00:00 |
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Silver Jubilee: Bond Street
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Bond Street tiling
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Station entrance below ground
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West One Shopping Centre
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Opened: Monday 24th September 1900
Jubilee line platforms opened: Tuesday 1st May 1979
Distance from previous station: 1.7 km
Platform: exit to the right of the train
Change here for: Central line
You'd be quicker changing here: From here to Stratford by Jubilee line takes 30 minutes. From here to Stratford by Central line takes 20 minutes.
Fact file: There is no nearby road called Bond Street - instead this station is named after New Bond Street and Old Bond Street.
5 things I found outside the station: bustling Oxford Street, the West One shopping centre, bureaux de change, loads of people, Evening Standard!
Nearby: Selfridges, the site of my great grandfather's tailor's shop in South Molton Street, the American Embassy (now hiding behind grim concrete barriers).
Local history: Bond Street is named after Sir Thomas Bond, a wily 17th century property speculator and close friend of King Charles II. Bond laid out the fine streets round these parts, and would no doubt be delighted that the street named after him is now synonymous with luxury.
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| Friday, 14-May-2004 00:00 |
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Silver Jubilee: Baker Street
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Southbound platform
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Outside the station
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Lost Property Office
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Opened: Saturday 10th January 1863
Distance from previous station: 2.1 km
Platform (northbound): exit to the left of the train
Platform (southbound): exit to the right of the train
You are now entering: zone 1
Change here for: Bakerloo line (a very easy same-level interchange), Metropolitan line, Circle line, Hammersmith & City line.
You'd be quicker changing here: From here to West Ham by Jubilee line takes 29 minutes. From here to West Ham by Hammersmith & City line takes 27 minutes.
Fact file: Baker Street is one of only seven underground stations on the world's first underground line between Paddington and Farringdon. The Bakerloo line deep-level station opened here in 1906, and the line out to Stanmore in 1939.
5 things I found outside the station: hundreds of tourists buying tacky souvenirs and pizzas, long queues for sightseeing buses, a statue of Sherlock Holmes, Transport for London's Lost Property Office (it's amazing what people lose), the big green copper dome of the London Planetarium (opened 1958).
Nearby (1): Madame Tussaud's waxworks dates back to 1835, when French sculptress Marie Tussaud opened her famous collection in Baker Street. I went to nursery school in her old studios, you know, up Watford way. Nowadays Ms Tussaud's legacy is an overpriced tourist trap complete with mild fright and Kylie's arse.
Nearby (2): Sherlock Holmes never lived at 221B Baker Street, mainly because he didn't exist and neither did the address. If he had, a shabby Abbey National now lies on the site, a feeble window display the only target for snapping cameras.
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| Thursday, 13-May-2004 00:00 |
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Silver Jubilee: St John's Wood
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The Abbey Road Café
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Abbey Road
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Lord's
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Opened: Monday 20th November 1939
Distance from previous station: 900m
Platform: exit to the right of the train
You are now entering: the London Borough of Westminster
Fact file: St John's Wood is the only station on the Underground network that shares no letters with the word 'mackerel'. The station was nearly called Acacia Road but the name was changed just before opening (which is just as well otherwise there'd be no mackerel-free tube stations).
5 things I found outside the station: a circular ticket hall with high glass windows, seven floors of flats built above the station, a shrubbery complete with palm trees, the tiny Abbey Road Café, hordes of Inter-Railers clutching Multimap printouts trying to work out where 'that' recording studo is.
Nearby (1): Abbey Road recording studios, opened by Sir Edward Elgar in 1931 but more famously home to the Beatles between 1962 and 1970. You can take a virtual visit here and watch that legendary zebra crossing on webcam here. Groups of young tourists still hang around outside wielding digital cameras, or crouching on the pavement writing messages on the walls in black marker pen.
Nearby (2): Lord's Cricket Ground, home to the Marylebone Cricket Club, the Ashes and some would argue of cricket itself. The ground takes up a large slice of northwest London, the new Media Centre looming over the area like an alien spaceship. You can visit the Lord's Museum, drink in the Lord's Tavern, shop in the Lord's shop, or just stay away and watch football instead.
Local history: St John's Wood was one of the first London suburbs, built in Victorian times to encourage the upper middle classes to move out of central London to the more rural outskirts. Well, they were rural at the time. Semi-detached villas and rows of apartment blocks line the leafy avenues, and almost every building has three to five storeys. NW8 still feels rather upmarket, but I suspect most addresses in the area start with the word 'Flat'.
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| Wednesday, 12-May-2004 00:00 |
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Silver Jubilee: Swiss Cottage
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Swiss Cottage
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The Swiss Cottage
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Uplighters on the escalator
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Opened: Monday 20th November 1939
Distance from previous station: 600m
Platform: exit to the right of the train
Fact file: This station replaced the original Swiss Cottage station on the Metropolitan line, opened in 1868. The old station and what's left of the old platform are still visible on the journey between Finchley Road and Baker Street. Two other Metropolitan stations closed on the same day in 1939 - Marlborough Road and Lords.
5 things I found outside the station: five station exits via subways, a dead busy road junction on the Finchley Road, Ye Olde Swiss Cottage (it's a chalet-style pub, built in 1840 beside the old Junction Road tollgate, now complete with exhaust fume soaked beer garden), Fujifilm House, an old Odeon cinema
Nearby: 'Louis of Hampstead' Hungarian confectioners, lots more shops, South Hampstead station, where the Saatchi Gallery used to be.
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| Tuesday, 11-May-2004 00:00 |
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Silver Jubilee: Finchley Road
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Finchley Road station
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The train arriving at...
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... platform 3
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Opened: Friday 13th June 1879
Distance from previous station: 600m
Platform: exit to the left of the train
Change here for: Metropolitan line
You'd be quicker changing here: From here to Baker Street by Jubilee line takes 7 minutes. From here to Baker Street (non-stop) by Metropolitan line takes 6 minutes. And it's a dead easy cross-platform change too.
Fact file: It's here that the underground section of the Jubilee line begins, through tunnels opened in 1939. Finchley Road station is four miles from Finchley.
5 things I found outside the station: the 02 shopping centre (a very modern mall complete with fishtanks and jungle-themed escalators), George's Shoe Repairs, the A41, Waitrose, a mysterious old wooden door labelled 'Meakers'.
Nearby: West Hampstead station is less than half a mile away to the west, through Sainsbury's car park. Swiss Cottage station is less than half a mile away to the southeast, at the other end of a busy shopping street.
Local history: Sigmund Freud lived just round the corner in Maresfield Gardens. He moved here from Germany in 1938 to escape the Nazis but died a year later. His house is still open as a museum, and there's a statue to Freud nearby.
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| Monday, 10-May-2004 00:00 |
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Silver Jubilee: West Hampstead
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West Hampstead station
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Glimpsed through the bars of a footbridge
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Opened: Monday 30th June 1879
Distance from previous station: 1.1 km
Platform: exit to the right of the train
You are now entering: the London Borough of Camden
Fact file: There are three different West Hampstead stations, all along the same road within 200 yards of each other. There's a Jubilee line station, a North London line station and a Thameslink station. There are plans to build a single interchange here, linking also to Chiltern Railways trains. If this ever happens you'll be able to change here for Birmingham, Bedford, Brighton and Bermondsey, but local residents have mixed views
You'd be quicker changing here: From here to Stratford by Jubilee line takes 40 minutes. From here to Stratford by North London line takes 35 minutes.
5 things I found outside the station: long queues for tickets, Mr Gingham's sandwich bar (sliced egg, £1.30), The Flower Gallery, the smell of bacon, a big green Camden 'Trade Waste' bin.
Nearby: real Hampstead, none of this 'West' wannabe status.
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| Sunday, 9-May-2004 00:00 |
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Silver Jubilee: Kilburn
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Kilburn station
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The blue bridge
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View from the bridge
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Opened: Monday 24th November 1879
Distance from previous station: 1.2 km
Platform: exit to the right of the train
Station originally called: Kilburn & Brondesbury
Fact file: Kilburn station lies at one end of that 147 ft long blue steel bridge you can see in the first photo, from which there are fine views across to Hampstead Heath and the BT Tower. The view is better from Metropolitan line trains than Jubilee line trains because they're taller.
5 things I found outside the station: a double viaduct painted blue, Shoot Up Hill (actually the A5 Watling Street), an old postbox, Kilburn Flowers, a dry cleaners that sells records.
Nearby: my great grandfather's grave (still lost somewhere in Paddington Cemetery), the Tricycle Theatre, a legendary Ian Dury band.
Local history: Kilburn grew up around a 12th century nunnery, built where Watling Street crossed the Kelbourne brook. Foyles bookshop started in Kilburn, moving to Charing Cross Road in 1926. The Gaumont State Cinema opened in 1937, then the largest cinema in the UK, and still contains the largest original Wurlitzer in full working order in Britain today.
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. Well done.
