Central Line Section 2: Bond Street to Woodfiord

Central Line – Section 2 – Bond Street to Woodford

I had to give this one some thought. At the eastern end of the Central Line it makes that nasty little complete loop before it joins itself back and continues to Epping. I had a think about how I could avoid having to double back on myself. The first solution that I came up with was to do the 16 stations to Woodford. Which would have worked for the last trip if it was possible to go directly from Roding Valley to Epping. It ain’t. However, it is possible to walk between Roding Valley and Buckhurst Hill station in about 20 minutes. Bingo. So for the second section, Bond Street to Woodford it was.

Looking at the line there were two fairly innocuous walking routes which occurred to me. Firstly, Bond Street to Tottenham Court Road via Oxford Circus, and secondly Chancery Lane to Liverpool Street. Fatigue and time permitting I decided to try to give both a go, but deferred a final definitive decision until I reached Chancery Lane.

I passed by the Marylebone Road entrance to Bond street, which I believe was opened as recently as 2017. The first time I passed by New Bond Street, when I was a kid, I was really surprised how insignificant it appeared, bearing in mind its preeminent position amongst the mighty dark green properties on my beloved Monopoly Board. It was only years later that I found out that Mr. Waddington, who had licensed the original Monopoly game from the USA, didn’t know London at all, and he only spent a very brief time on a visit deciding which London properties he could replace the original Atlantic City ones with. Hence the inclusion of Marlborough Street – which I believe only ever existed as Great Marlborough Street. It might also explain why the south of the river is even more poorly served by the Monopoly board than it is by the Underground – only poor old Old Kent Road , which to add insult to injury is also the cheapest property on the board.

I’ll be honest, I’m glad that I’d decided to walk this section. Oxford Circus is one of those stations which is better off being looked at than actually used. For one thing, you can only exit through the station buildings. To enter you have to use the stairways on Oxford Circus. For another thing, while the Leslie Green and Harry Bell Measures exits are picturesque, and both of them are listed buildings, they’re not always adequate for the number of people trying to exit the station at the same time. It’s not really surprising. The station opened before Harry Selfridge opened his little shop on Oxford Street, and maybe it was the proximity of the stations which pushed him in that direction. Whatever the case, the proximity of Selfridges, John Lewis and other top stores to the station has meant that it has had a pretty heavy footfall for longer than I can remember. At the best of times Oxford Street itself is crowded, but at least I find that I’m carried along with a wave of humanity to the end of the street, and the next destination.

Tube stations come thick and fast in this part of Central London. It’s only a short walk along the Charing Cross Road and Tottenham Court road to Leicester Square station, and Goodge Street on the Northern Line is only about 5 minutes’ walk away in the opposite direction. I used to use Tottenham Court Road station to visit Foyles,

one of my favourite London bookshops in the early 80s, and the original Forbidden Planet, my absolute favourite bookshop of the early 80s. All of which is, I suppose, a way of stalling for time before I pass comment on the new station which was opened in 2015. Cards on the table, it doesn’t do as much for me as, for example, the modern station at Hounslow East. Still, there has at least been some effort to here to give the eye something to latch onto. The profile, gentle sloping downwards from the apex appeals far more than a flat block would have done, and having the whole of the façade above the entrance itself made of glass panels is all to the good. I do think that glass panels on the side of the building might have helped, though, and I wonder what the place will look like in another 10 or 15 years time, especially if the maintenance budget is cut. Probably better than the nearby Centrepoint Tower from the 60s.

In the course of my Piccadilly Line and District Line trips I ended up sketching 5 stations which are also on the Central Line, and the next, Holborn, is one of them. So we’ll pass over, while just noting that one of the better known ghost stations, the Central Line’s British Museum station, was actually killed off by Holborn. There’s no overground trace of where the British Museum station entrance actually was – well, I couldn’t find one, anyway. So I’ve read, the original Harry Bell Measures station building survived until the late 80s. The platforms are gone, and so am I, moving swiftly on to Chancery Lane.

As is not uncommon with London Tube Stations, Chancery Lane is only close to the thoroughfare from which it takes its name, but not actually on it. The lane itself takes its name from the old court of Chancery. I studied English Literature at University, and have taught it since, and am a lifelong fan of Charles Dickens, so the name inevitably conjures up one of Dickens’ greatest novels, “Bleak House”, with the seemingly endless court case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce winding its way through the court with glacial slowness. There is a station building on High Holborn, but it’s disused. It certainly looks like the work of Harry Bell Measures, but my brief research didn’t reveal if this is actually the case. The current ticket hall is accessed via staircases which looked pretty similar to those of Notting Hill Gate.  

Time looked fine, and I still had the hwyl necessary for the job, so I walked from Chancery Lane to our next station, St. Paul’s. Now, here’s a fact about the station you might not know. When it was first opened, this station was actually called Post Office, since it was close to the headquarters of the General Post Office – where novelist Anthony Trollope worked for part of his career. Now, look, if I’m being honest I’m probably too quick to mourn London’s lost buildings, but I do think that it’s a shame that the original GPO headquarters, a magnificent neo classical design by Robert Smirke, was demolished not that long after the station opened. Still, one thing you can say about the area immediately around St. Paul’s Station is that you’re not short of an imposing building or two. Which brings me to Temple Bar. In the 1870s, Christopher Wren’s original Temple Bar gateway was removed from the strand to make way for the Law Courts. In the early noughties a long standing campaign to reinstate the arch, which had stood in Theobald’s Park in Hertfordshire in the interim, came to fruition. The bar was reerected at the entrance to Paternoster Square from Fleet Street. And sadly, in my opinion, it is absolutely dwarfed by the buildings on either side, and not seen to its best effect. I saw the Bar in Theobald’s Park a day or two before demolition started, and it’s difficult to believe that the Bar now isn’t a smaller scale model. Back in the park it was rather dilapidated, but it stood in solitary majesty, while now, it’s been splendidly restored, but can’t help looking a little sorry for itself in its position.

We called in on Bank when we visited Monument station on the District, so I don’t let it detain me much. I can’t help liking this part of the City though. Everyone should walk through the financial district of the city on a weekday lunchtime, and then walk through it at any time on a Saturday, so they can marvel at the ghostliness of the place at the weekends. Besides, Liverpool Street, where I plan to get back on the train, isn’t far away at all. When I’m this close to London Bridge I can’t help an irresistible urge to spout facts about it. For example, the closest church to Liverpool Street station is St. Botolph’s, Bishopsgate. When the original stone London Bridge – the one which had buildings on it until 1760 – was demolished in 1831, the railings from the Bridge were placed around the churchyard. I don’t think they’re the railings there now – maybe they were melted down during world war II.

As you know, Liverpool Street is also a mainline railway terminal, and while the entrance to the tube station isn’t as understated as Victoria’s, it’s not as flamboyant as the District station at Paddington, or the new station at King’s Cross. The street entrance is curved around a corner, which is probably its best feature, and a pair of unadorned columns either side of the entranceway support the curved canopy. The yellowy slabs above the canopy really don’t do a great deal to enhance its appeal. However, it’s a station I rather like for another reason, since it also ticks off a station for both the Hammersmith and City Line and the Metropolitan. I don’t mention the Circle Line, since all of the Circle line stations will be covered when I’ve completed all the other lines.

In well over 100 stations so far we’ve seen a very small number of stations whose sole entrances are Bethnal Green is another of them. Sadly, Bethnal Green station’s claim to fame is as the scene of the biggest ever loss of life on the Underground. On the evening of 3^rd March 1943 an air raid warning sent people rushing to the shelter. A woman and a child tripped on the stairs, causing others to fall around her, as the crush of people pressed downwards. 173 people lost their lives that day, and 60 others were injured. News of the tragedy was hushed up due to wartime restrictions, and there was no enquiry until after the end of the war. I first became aware of this when taking my now grown up daughters to visit the nearby Museum of Childhood – another benefit to London brought through the 1851 Great Exhibition via the V and A- and read the plaque which stands as a memorial in the station.

via stairways down to holes in the ground, but

So it’s in still rather a sombre mood that I pass through Mile End station. I don’t emerge this time, since I’ve already visited on the second of my District Line trips. I ended that second District Line trip there, but I’ve Stratford station building wasn’t just before the 2012 Olympics, it was also before the Jubilee Line extended its tendril this far, back in the 80s. Now, everything about what I was actually doing in Stratford has faded from retrievable memory, but all I know is that the station is unrecognisable now. Which is hardly surprising, since this was where masses of people arrived during London’s great 2012 showpiece. In fact masses of people still use it. It’s a hub which connects with Overground and also with national railways, which makes it the 6^th busiest station currently on the network, and more interestingly, the busiest station outside of the Central London area. I have to say, though, that I rather like it. The curving roof makes all the difference. Yes, okay, it’s a little reminiscent of a new city centre shopping mall, but it’s the kind of place I can see keeping its appeal.

still got over half a dozen stops to go on this one. The next of which is Stratford. The last time I emerged from the

I tried to find some appeal in Leyton station, but I’ll be honest, I found it hard going. I’m reliably informed that there were plans to extend the station buildings for the Olympics, but it never happened. As it is now, well, it’s a rather featureless shed. It’s desperately crying out for a little relief in the shape of some windows in the façade, and without these its appearance tends to act as something of a real depressant to the spirits. It doesn’t surprise me when research reveals that the original name of the station, when built for the Eastern Counties railway was Low Leyton. They had it right with the original name.

Thankfully the next station, Leytonstone, has quite a bit more going for it. Work began at the dog end of the 30s, as you can see from its modernist, art deco design. However the war put paid to attempts to finish it in 1940. Still, finished after the war, this at least looks like it belongs on the same line as stations like Greenford, Perivale and Hanger Lane. Back in the mid 80s, when I was courting Mrs. Clark, or Miss Walker as she was known then, we would often end a date on the platforms of this station, as she would continue along the loop to Chigwell, and I’d either carry straight on to see family at South Woodford, or head back into town, and make my way slowly to Lewisham. But I have to say that all the times I used the station, I really had no idea that the exterior was this nice.

Well, I have to say that I wasn’t expecting Snaresbrook station to be quite like it is. I’ve passed through on many occasions but had never stepped outside the building before. I get the feeling that Snaresbrook station could be something really rather special if it had just a bit of a makeover, or failing that, a bloody good clean. It has the appearance of an old Victorian townhouse gone to seed a bit, rather like the road in Lewisham in which I lived as a student. It’s a shame, because if the panels in a couple of places were replaced with windows, and the whole place brightened up a bit it could really be something. The window arrangement at the moment though is rather lopsided, and from straight on it looks as if the house is grinning drunkenly, which I’m sure is unlikely to have been the intended effect.

Well, thence to South Woodford. This is a station that I had stepped out of before, in fact on many occasions. My uncle, aunt and first cousins live in the district, and I spent a lot of time with them while I was at uni. The station sits at the end of George Street, which at the time had a nice variety of shops, in particular I remember a very old fashioned and rather grand tailors. As for the station itself, well, it’s rather more on the old fashioned end of quaint, but a much more welcoming façade than Leyton, having preserved the red brickwork, and the original wooden and cast iron canopy. This is a station which feels well looked after, and it makes all the difference to the casual sketcher.

I had never before taken the line past South Woodford, so I was quite looking forward to pushing on to Woodford, and the completion of this penultimate trip on the Central Line. As I emerged, the design of the station irresistibly reminded me of the shelters in Elthorne Park, Hanwell, from when I was a kid. These structures saw 4 elegant, narrow cast iron poles supporting a rather large tiled roof.Okay, the columns are really only there to support the roof where it extends out over the main entrance, but hey, this is my trip, and my memory, and that’s what the place brought to mind. My research suggested that there is a decoy owl hanging somewhere to scare off pigeons and the like. Maybe, but I couldn’t see it. Possibly this was just tube fatigue, having come to the end of this particular trip.

A trip which, incidentally, had seen me reach and pass the halfway mark at Leyton, I think. From here on in I have fewer stations left to visit and sketch than I’ve already done.