I entered on
this final Piccadilly Line trip with a sense of mounting excitement. I knew
that some of the finest stations on the Piccadilly Line lay ahead – and therefore
some of the finest on the whole network. Also, I’d seen the name Cockfosters as
a destination so many times as a kid, yet had never been there. What was it
like? I would find out by the end of the day.
I’d already
decided what my walked section was going to be. After my mother married my
stepfather in 1996, they lived in Tottenham for 15 years, and because of many
visits I knew the overground way between Turnpike Lane and Bounds Green via
Wood Green station pretty well.
Next stop on from King’s Cross, then, is Caledonian
Road. I was tempted to walk this section so that I could check out the
disused Leslie Green York Road station. It closed the same day that the
Piccadilly Line extension to Finsbury Park opened in 1932.The buildings
survived, I guess, because they were used as commercial premises for some time,
and survived World War II. At the moment the station stands as an emergency
exit from the tunnels. As I say, I was tempted to walk between Kings Cross ad
Caledonian Road to take in York Road, but the fact is that I know this section
of the Piccadilly Lie less well than the others, and although I only had 12
stations to visit, I had no idea how long this section was going to take me,
and so I erred on the side of caution. Caledonian Road is a larger Leslie Green
station, rather reminiscent of the station at Russell Square.
The next
station, Holloway Road, is also a larger Leslie Green station – this one
has 6 semi circular windows on the façade as opposed to Caledonian Road’s 5.
When you look at these stations you can see that they are pretty substantial
buildings in their own way, and so you can understand how people think that
overwork contributed to Leslie Green’s tragic early death from TB. Holloway
Road station’s claim to fame is that it once housed a spiral escalator. A
spiral escalator which didn’t work, and was apparently never opened to the
public. The opening of this station put paid pretty much to the Great Northern
Railway’s Caledonian Road and Holloway station which was originally opened in
the 1850s, but closed within a few years of the current station opening.
I’ve been a Spurs supporter since the
70s, and I do know fellow Spurs supporters who call the next station Gillespie
Road. To be fair this is the name which is still spelled out on the wall tiles
on the Piccadilly Line platforms. It was only called Gillespie Road from
opening in 1906 for the next 26 years, after which it was named Arsenal
(Highbury). I could write a lot about the enmity between the two North
London clubs, but you’ll be pleased to know that I won’t. But let’s pay tribute
to Arsenal’s legendary manager from the 30s, Herbert Chapman, whose lobbying
probably tipped the scales for the renaming of the station. The name remains,
even if Arsenal didn’t, their current home, the Emirates Stadium, being closer
to Holloway Road. The original Leslie Green building went the way of all flesh
in the 30s, and the current building was built. It’s definitely a modernist
style, but if it was designed by Holden, I guess it may have been a Friday
afternoon design. It’s blocky and uninspiring, and would really have benefitted
from one of his trademark glass screens.
Finsbury Park is the last station
on this northwards section of the Piccadilly Line to connect with any other
line, in this case the Victoria Line, and national rail services, and to be
fair it was originally opened in the 1860s on the Great Northern Railway line
into their Kings Cross terminus. Originally, Finsbury Park was the northeast terminus
of the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway. The Western Entrance,
shown in the sketch, is actually the newest thing on any Piccadilly Line
station at the time of writing, since it only opened in December 2019.
The
Piccadilly Line boasts three stations with the word ‘Manor’ in their name.
Boston and Ruislip are on the two western arms and we visited them The third and final on the Piccadilly is Manor House. Now, I’ve tried to be
positive about the vast majority of the buildings I’ve sketched along the way,
but, I have to say that calling this station Manor House is just writing a
cheque which the building itself can in no way, shape or form cash. If Arsenal
looks like it was designed on a Friday night, then this one looks like it was
designed when he got up hungover on a Sunday morning and just couldn’t be
arsed. Sorry. At least it’s brick faced, and has some windows, but, to be
honest, it looks like he’s forgotten the rectangular ticket hall which
transforms so many of the stations on this line. Time to move on. 
Thankfully,
Holden returned to form with the run of stations from here to the end of the
line. We start with the next station, Turnpike Lane. Now, here’s a funny
thing. Driving to my Mum’s old house in Tottenham from the west, the best way
was always to go along the North Circular, and then turn off for Wood Green. In
the process you’d pass Bounds Green, then Wood Green, and if you carried on
rather than turning up Lordship Lane, then you’d come to Turnpike Lane. Which
is actually the opposite order from that in which the train passes through
them. Go figure. In some ways this is almost a Holden Greatest hits
compilation. Tower? Check. Rectangular booking hall with glazed sections?
Check. Long low wide entrance? Check? Semi Circular ends? Of course.
A short walk
slightly uphill to Wood Green took me past what I know as the Shopping
City complex, but which now calls itself the Mall Wood Green. Call it what you
like, its 70s architecture is uninspiring, but at least it was built after the
UK’s civic architects rediscovered brick. Had it have been built a few years
earlier no doubt it would have presented a dirty grey concrete face to the
world.
I mentioned
the junction with Lordship Lane a little earlier, and once I’d crossed that
busy intersection I had arrived at Wood Green station. We can be
thankful for small mercies here, since if the station had been sited just the
other side of the Lordship Lane junction, then it’s not impossible it would
have been rebuilt as part of the shopping city complex. As it is, though, we
still get to enjoy Charles Holden’s curved frontage, with its ventilation
towers. Apparently the towers were later additions, according to my research.
Bounds Green stations
is one I had only ever undertaken on a train, or in a car. Underground, the
road gradient makes no difference, and it doesn’t make much more in a car. On
foot, though. . . well we’re not exactly talking Hovis advert gradient, but the
uphill drag went on and on, and I have to say that I’d had quite enough of the
Bounds Green Road by the time I reached the station of the same name. The
station houses a plaque which stands as a memorial to people who were killed
when the station tunnel, in which they were sheltering, collapsed during a
bombing raid during world war II. Up until this trip I’d never been past Wood
Green on the Piccadilly Line so far, so I have to say that I was particularly
looking forward to getting back on a train at this point. I have to say that I
have a real soft spot for this station. It’s beautifully proportioned, and
pleasing to the eye, yet it rarely receives the plaudits so often bestowed upon
our next station.
So I’ve already bigged up Southgate
station, and that is with the benefit of hindsight. I would imagine that my
first reaction to the station when I walked out of it was pretty similar to
most people’s, that is that it looks as if a flying saucer from a 1950s B movie
has landed in suburban North London. I absolutely love this station. I can only
imagine what the reaction of people was when it first opened in 1933. It must
have been like walking onto the set of Metropolis, or the Flash Gordon movie
serials. I make the connection to movies of the time deliberately, since I’m
convinced that movies I part influenced Holden in his design. The story goes
that the structure on the roof was inspired by the tesla coils which help bring
the monster to life in the 1931 movie “Frankenstein”. This station is about as
far as you can get from Holden’s own appraisal of his stations as ‘brick boxes
with concrete lids’.
I didn’t
previously know that the line emerges overground before Oakwood, so at
least I’ve learned something on the trip. On emerging from the building my
first thought was that I’d somehow gone through a wormhole back to Acton Town,
since, superficially at least, the stations seemed very similar. A quick walk
around showed me a rather fetching station sign combined with a seat which I’m
guessing were original art deco features of the station.
That was it, the penultimate station of
the Piccadilly Line, which only left the enigmatic Cockfosters to go. I
say enigmatic for a couple of reasons. Firstly, in all the time I lived in
London, I don’t recall anybody ever announcing that they had to go to
Cockfosters, or ever mentioning it in conversation. I had absolutely no idea
what Cockfosters was actually like as a place, nor why the Piccadilly Line
should choose to end there. As for what the station actually meant. . . Well, that I’ve since discovered is simple
– it’s on Cockfosters Road. Foster is a shortened version of the word forester,
and the cock forester was the head or chief forester. Quite prosaic when you
know, isn’t it? The station itself is another of those unassuming Holden jobs,
although the small towers at either end, and the original glass screens do
provide just enough to divert the eye and give it a pleasing if unspectacular
appearance.
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That was it.
I had half a mind to go for a walk around the local area to try to get a feel,
but to be honest I was just too tired. What can I say – it looked like the
outskirts of London, which is exactly what it was. During the long ride back to
Boston Manor I tried to assemble my thoughts, now that I’d visited every
station on the line, and sketched all bar the 12 on this trip, to draw some
sort of conclusion about the Piccadilly as a whole. You can certainly draw
comparisons between the three ends of the line, since two of them were entirely
built in the 1930s, and all bar Hatton Cross and the Heathrow stations on the
other was bult at the same time. Yet even on these sections there are not only
newer rebuilt stations as you might expect, but there are also older remnants,
like Hounslow central, Ruislip and North Ealing. This hodgepodge is even more
noticeable in the Central London sections where the Harry Fords mingle with
Leslie Greens, a couple of token Holdens, and some holes in the ground. I did
wonder whether this was how it was going to be for the remaining lines.
Speaking of
which, I had to think about which line I should do next. The Piccadilly has the
second highest number of stations, after the District Line. That was a strong
argument for doing the District next, as was the fact that I’d already sketched
quite a number of the more westerly District Line stations. Also, the
westernmost terminus of the line was none other than my ‘third’ home station,
Ealing Broadway. District Line it was, then.
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