Section 2: Piccadilly Line - Uxbridge to Acton Town 1

This, the longer of the two western arms of the Piccadilly, shares quite a number of stations with the Metropolitan Line, including the terminus, Uxbridge. Now, let’s be honest, Uxbridge is a fair old way out of the centre of London. I remember going to stay with my cousin in Harefield, and taking the 207 bus from Hanwell to Uxbridge. The journey lasted about 4 days, as I recall it. 

When I arrived, I was quite struck by the appearance of the outside of the station. It’s Charles Holden, Jim, but not as we know it. The façade is curved, and the most interesting features are a pair of columns, and above them a pair of sculptures which represent, so I’m reliably informed, a pair of winged wheels. Ah, well, that at least makes some sense. The curve in the building was to accommodate a turning circle for trolleybuses, so I’m told. I’ll be honest, the inside of the station seemed a lot more interesting than the exterior, so I didn’t waste much time outside after I’d taken the regulation photographs for the sketch. 

For a long time every time I returned to London I’d use the M25 to transfer from the M4 to the M40/A40 Western Avenue. The first physical sign that I’d actually arrived in London was always Hillingdon tube station. I’d come this way because my younger brother lived a mile or two away from the station, and it was easier to visit him on the way into London. I was without a car for a time, and so ended up using this station a number of times, and probably know it better than most of the other stations on this arm of the line. To be honest, up until now it has always struck me as a particularly shapeless structure, but looking at it on this visit I saw that this was completely wrong. The station is full of shapes, and that’s the problem I had with it. When I look at a building, I can usually clearly see its outline in my mind. I struggle with Hillingdon because of its low roofs, canopies, exposed beams, exposed staircases, and what have you. It carries off the unusual feat of feeling large, yet at the same time insubstantial. 

I don’t know what I was expecting at Ickenham, next station eastwards from Hillingdon, but it wasn’t what I actually found. My first thought, on emerging from the building, was that I’d gone back in time to my schooldays. My school was first made into a comprehensive in 1975, the year before I first attended it, and the main site was a former Secondary Modern, which had been enlarged by a collection of hastily designed and built concrete blocks, faced with brick and plastic, and the obligatory flat roofs. Which is a pretty good description of Ickenham Station, which is their contemporary. Research suggests that even this is an improvement on what was there before, since it was a very simple halt. The original Metropolitan Railway extension had refused to build a proper station due to their concerns that enough passengers would use it to make it viable. You may remember how I called the stations at Hounslow Central and Hounslow East chalk and cheese? Well, Ickenham and the next station,

Ruislip are gypsum and stilton in that case. Ruislip was the oldest station I had encountered up to this point, dating back to when this line to Uxbridge first opened in 1904. As a result it resembles nothing quite so much as an Edwardian country railway station – and when you get right down to it, when it was built this was exactly what it was. Ruislip is one of those places which seems to be exceedingly well served with tube stations. There are 5 altogether with the word Ruislip part of their name. Mind you, there are 7 Actons, so maybe we shouldn’t go on about it. 

The current building of our next station, Ruislip Manor, was opened in 1938. The station bears some typical Holden features – the low, wide entrance, and brick tower above it, although this is the first time we’ve seen a station incorporating the wall of a viaduct as well. According to my research, the number of people using the station annually had risen from 17,000 in 1931, to over a million 6 years later, reflecting the spread of suburban development in the area. 

You’ve probably already worked out for yourself that I have a very soft spot for the Art Deco design ethic of Holden’s best stations, and I have to say that I think the next station on the line, Eastcote, is a particularly nice example. As you can see it’s similar to Rayners Lane although on a smaller scale. However the two semi circular wings face to the front of the station, and this gives the whole thing a very pleasing symmetry. 

I am very sorry, but I still can never see the name Rayners Lane written down without feeling a little bit of residual irritation. It goes back to the days of waiting footsore on Piccadilly line platforms, watching the next rain boards flash up train after train to Rayners Lane of Uxbridge, with narry a one for Hounslow for ages. Nonetheless, a station it is, so I resolved to grit my teeth, and try my best to play fair with the place. 

Which wasn’t difficult really. This is a typically Holden arrangement, with the rectangular booking hall dominating the wide, low entrance. The distinctive things here are the semi-circular ends of the street level entrance. A little research showed that Holden collaborated with New Zealand born architect Reginald Uren, who could boast the John Lewis store in Oxford Street on his design CV. Uren also collaborated with Holden on the unbuilt design for Finchley Central. 

The next station along the line, South Harrow, is a rather strange looking beast. As with Osterley station, it is situated some distance from the original which still exists. 

As for the current Holden structure, it’s built in what appears to be a series of steps, although Holden still managed to incorporate a pleasing curve on the ground level. For me the appearance is somewhat spoiled by all the safety rails on the roofs, which are a later addition to the station, but I do understand the need for them, and it’s not exactly health and safety gone mad in this case. 

After the diversion from the template with the previous station, Sudbury Hill saw Holden revert to a trademark rectangular booking hall above a wider entrance. I wish I could find a bit more to say about it, but I do find that I’m at the risk of repeating myself here. This is the third ‘typical’ Holden station out of the last 4, and the next station, Sudbury Town, continues in the same idiom. Well, what the hell. It’s the style of station that, when I look at it, gives me a warm feeling of being closer to home, and that’ even though I’ve lived away from London for well over 30 years now. 

Research shows that it was this arm of the District Railway was the first overground stretch of what became the London Underground to be electrified, from the time when the line was first built in the early 1900s. One of the interesting things I noticed about this, and the next two stations as well, is that the station name isn’t on a dark blue, backlit panel, which it is on most of the other stations on the network, but picked out in brass letters. 

Similar in shape and style, as I said, is the next station, Sudbury Town. On the whole, though, it’s rather larger than the previous station. Not only that, though, Sudbury Town shows what a difference having the low flat entrance makes, not having one of its own. Take this away, and the station is much more like the brick box with a concrete lid’ of Holden’s description. The ironic thing about a station like Sudbury Town is that in any other city, it would be held up as a fine example of modernist art deco architecture. London, and this stretch of the Piccadilly Line, has such an embarrassment of riches, though, it runs the risk of being glossed over. 

I used to pass Alperton station on my way to Wembley Market on a Sunday morning. Thought that I’d just throw that one in. In the course of research before the trip, I read that Alperton has an escalator which used to go up to the platforms, which has been sealed up behind a war, which was originally used on the South Bank Festival of Britain complex. Personally I’d love to see it, because I find the Festival of Britain a fascinating subject. Still, that’s another subject for another day. The station itself buts onto the railway viaduct, which is one thing which makes it distinct from Sudbury Town, which its ticket hall closely resembles.Like Sudbury Town I personally feel it’s the poorer for not having the wide extended porch-like entrance .

I began the walked section of this particular trip by alighting at Park Royal station. When I was a kid, Park Royal, despite the grand name, was a really industrial area, synonymous with the Guinness Brewery. This art deco complex, the work of Alexander Gibb and Sir Giles Gilbert Scott was the subject of a mini public outcry when it was demolished in 2006, but I have to say that my memories of it are as basically a series of massive brick sheds, without much to tempt the eye. The Western Avenue itself, like the Great West Road, saw a number of grand industrial buildings built in the 30s, including the Hoover Building in nearby Perivale, and to be honest, if it came to choice between the Hoover and Guinness Buildings, then the Hoover would have won hands down in my opinion.

At first glance Park Royal Station does have some of the characteristics of a Holden building, with the brickwork and the obvious art deco styling. Yet despite the circular section, the whole effect is somehow not quite as satisfying as a pure Holden station, rather than an ‘inspired by Holden’ station, which this is, designed as it was by the architects Welch and Lander. Apparently there was a temporary structure from 1931 until 1936 when this building finally opened.

It took somehow longer than it felt it should have to walk from Park Royal Station to North Ealing Station, most of which meant walking along the North Circular Road, an experience of which the kindest description is it’s less painful than a trip to the dentist. North Ealing station, though is worth the walk. It is as much of a surprise as Hounslow Central was on the previous section. Sandwiched between the Holden designed stations at Ealing Common and Park Royal, this charming little station resembles nothing quite so much as a station in a prosperous rural market town. I have no idea why it wasn’t rebuilt by Holden, but in a way I’m quite glad that it wasn’t. Variety is the spice of life, as they do say.

From North Ealing I walked back to the North Circular, until I reached the Uxbridge Road, very close to Ealing Common station. I’ll be honest, I never really saw the point of Ealing Common as a station. It’s relatively close to Ealing Broadway, and there really isn’t a lot which the station is closer to which might entice you to use it. It’s not as if you have to go to Ealing Common to change from the Ealing Broadway branch of the District to the Piccadilly, as you can just as easily do that at Acton Town. In fact, it makes more sense to do so at Acton Town, since you’ve more chance of an Eastbound train from Acton Town than from Ealing Common. 

Still, it is there, and my thought, as I remarked upon its similarity to Hounslow West from the previous section, was to celebrate it for what it is, rather than castigate it for what it’s not. Short of building a time machine there’s no way of me asking Charles Holden what he (alright, him and Stanley Heaps) was thinking in using hexagonal booking halls in only these two stations. Well, it’s a nice and pretty distinctive way of finishing this section of the line, and I returned to Acton Town. 

Acton Town is the first station eastwards after the two western arms of the Piccadilly Line have joined. From street level the station building is very reminiscent of Northfields, but it’s Northfields plus, if you like, almost Northfields squared. It has a similar rectangular structure above the entrance, but this has no less than 6 panels of glass, compared with Northfields’ one. Like most of the stations we’ve seen on this stretch of the line, the first Acton Town Station, then called Mill Hill Park, was part of the District Railway, then the District Line, and the current station was built in the early 1930s to service the Piccadilly Line extension. In 1994 the station received listed building status.