I start at
Wanstead, bright eyed and bushy tailed. I’ve never travelled on the Hainault
loop before – in fact I’ve never visited any of today’s stations before, and so
we have the excitement of the new if nothing else to sustain us through today’s
trip.
This is an excitement which even the
rather run down and depressed appearance of Wanstead station does little to dampen. I use my phone to google
the station on Wikipedia and I’m surprised to see that it’s a Charles Holden
design. Maybe I shouldn’t be, bearing in mind the tower, which thus far has
seemed a feature only used by Holden and followers of his style. I suppose it’s
the drab colours, and the lack of glazed panels – although there are some on
the other side of the tower that I discover when I take a quick walk around the
outside. Like many Central Line extension stations, this one was started
before, but not finished until after World War two. Before reaching the
station, we went underground, which I really wasn’t expecting this far out of
the centre of London – it’s one thing for a tunnel to continue out into the
suburbs, but quite another for one to start like this.
Thus prepared by the previous station,
I’m pretty ready to identify Redbridge
as the work of Charles Holden. For one thing the red brick tower with the
glazed panels is clearly either the work of Holden, or of someone consciously
using his style. Then there’s the glazed circular booking hall rising above the
entrance – it isn’t as imposing as Arnos Grove, but then few other stations
are. I’ll be honest, it’s a very short journey from platform to street level
considering that this is a ‘tube’ that is deep level station as opposed to cut
and cover, which it feels much more like. Still, let’s concentrate on the
exterior. The canopy with the station name and the entrance underneath it both
gently curve around the booking hall, and all in all it creates a very pleasant
and harmonious appearance. I’m not surprised when Google coughs up the
information that it is in fact a listed building.
I have a lot to say about Gants Hill Station, very little of it
about the exterior though. Basically the station is underground, with entrance
made via pedestrian subways from the roundabout above. That’s it. However,
inside, that’s far more interesting.
This is one
of the last stations designed by Charles Holden. Now, going back to the 30s,
the engineers of the Moscow Underground, now the busiest in Europe, were very
interested in getting ideas from London, and I believe that Charles Holden
himself was consulted. Okay – one result of the Russian engineers’ visits to
London was that the word ‘voksul’ was adopted for metro stations in Russian.
Why? Because, allegedly, they believed that Vauxhall, as in Vauxhall station,
meant station. I’ve yet to find any proof to the contrary of this idea. Holden
himself was inspired by the designs of the station interiors on the brand new
Moscow metro, and this bore fruit with the interior of Gants Hill. The
spectacular barrel vaulted concourse with its art deco uplighters immediately
transports me back to memories of bad spy movies, and I half expect the
gentleman sitting on the other end of the bench to sidle up to me, and whisper
“I hear that in Leningrad the weather will be clement.” in an Eastern European
accident. I’m mildly disappointed when he doesn’t.
However, it’s hard to be disappointed
when the sun is shining outside in the world above, and each station is
offering something different. This is certainly true of Newbury Park station. Now, strictly speaking, the interesting
concrete structure isn’t all the station entrance, but rather a bus shelter
containing the station entrance, and more importantly a grade 2 listed bus
shelter. Now, I’ve no idea how many bus shelters are listed buildings, and if
you know, please don’t write in and shatter my illusions. But I will admit that
when I hear the words ‘listed’ and ‘building’ , then bus shelters are not what
are usually conjured up in my mind’s eye. This is a remarkable structure
though. Designed, not by Charles Holden, unsurprisingly, but Oliver Hill, the
concrete arches hold up a copper covered roof. Now, I’ve very sorry but I do
like a copper covered roof, which probably has something to do with the fact
that the church in which I was christened, St. Thomas the Apostle in Hanwell,
has one. I love the shade of green that copper goes when it reaches a certain
age, as shown by the Statue of Liberty in New York. Many people don’t know that
it’s made out of copper sheeting over a steel frame, and that for years after
it was first erected it was actually copper coloured. Coming back to Newbury
Park, the building was originally designed in the 30s, and seems a remarkably
futuristic design. Oliver Hill himself had designed other wonderful art deco
buildings, including the masterpiece Midland Hotel in Morecambe. Newbury Park
is our second station to have won a design award in the 1951 Festival of
Britain, probably because it wasn’t completed until after World War Two.
If
this part of the Hainault loop had a motto, it might well be – and now for
something completely different, since Barkingside,
the next station, is precisely that. Well, completely different from the
stations that have preceded it anyway. It’s very much the oldest looking
station we’ve encountered so far on this particular trip. Barkingside looks
like an Edwardian national railway station, which is exactly what it started
life as. Google coughs up the gobbet of information that it was opened in 1903,
and probably designed by the Great Eastern Railway’s chief architect, W.N.
Ashbee. What’s not to like here? Well, the concrete rendering which reaches
about a third of the way of the wall of the main part of the building doesn’t
do much to enhance the appeal, but other than that, it’s the kind of thing
that’s always pleasing to my eye. I especially like the cupola on the roof
directly above the entrance. The whole thing is just a little reminiscent of my
primary school. I shouldn’t be really surprised about this, since there was a
spate of school building in England and Wales during the last few years leading
up to the First World War. Both my primary school, and two of the blocks in the
school in South Wales in which I taught for almost 30 years were built in 1913.
And having loved my time in both of these schools, looking at this kind of
architecture brings on a pleasant glow of nostalgia.
In a way it’s a bit of a shame for Fairlop that I visit the station
straight after Barkingside. I alight under beautiful white painted wooden Great
Eastern Railway canopies, and my expectation is that this is going to be my
second Edwardian railway station in a row. Stepping outside this prediction is
confirmed, and it’s a perfectly nice little station, other than the fact it’s
not as impressive or quite as decorative as Barkingside, which we’ve just
visited. It’s a bit of a shame, since the platforms themselves are amongst the
nicest I’ve seen on the Central Line at all. Everything looks freshly painted.
The iron work holding up the canopies is gorgeous, and for a moment I am
tempted to start acting out a scene from The Railway Children. My Jenny Agutter
impression hasn’t improved with age, I’m afraid.
Well, after such a
run of fine and interesting stations, we had to be brought back to earth at
some time, and Hainault achieves
this. It’s not that it’s ugly, but just that it’s nondescript, which makes it
difficult when you’re trying to descript it. To be fair, it’s difficult to
think of any of the stations I’ve seen which has really benefitted from being
built on the side of a viaduct or a raised section of line. I liked Greenford
for example, but I don’t mind saying it might be even more appealing if it was
completely free standing. Coming back to Hainault, its layout and materials resemble
a Charles Holden entrance hall, but without the benefit of a trademark Holden
ticket hall. The cast iron bridge casts over half of the entrance in what I’d
guess is a perpetual gloom, and although the façade is brightened by the map
and several posters, it doesn’t have any windows, which is a shame. I’ll tell
you something else which is a shame. I always thought that this part of the
world took it’s name Hainault through some connection with Queen Philippa of
Hainault, wife of King Edward III. Apparently not. The spelling was changed
from Hyneholt in the 1600s because of a false connection to her. Hyneholt,
well, I’m not sure about the Hyne bit, but I know from my days studying Old
English at University that holt – as in Northolt – means wood.
Talking of
evocative names, the next station, Grange
Hill, brings back memories of a long running school based TV drama series,
with which it sadly has absolutely no connection. My meagre research has thrown
up a couple of facts about the station itself. Work started in 1938, but wasn’t
completed until after World War II. Heard that before? Of course. Well, how
about this one. The station was hit by a V1 flying bomb ‘doodlebug’ in 1944.
Another thing to add to the long chapter one could write about the London Underground
in wartime. As it stands today, the station looks Holdenesque, ersatz rather
than genuine Holden. I was unable to find out who actually designed it. From
the canopy down, it’s Holden, but the ticket hall rising above and behind the
entrance just doesn’t look quite right. It’s a little too low, and has windows
all around rather than the glazed panels you’d expect from Holden. It’s
perfectly alright as a building, but sadly, by following a Holdenesque plan
this ends up just drawing attention to how it just isn’t quite as nice as a
Holden station.
Well, from ersatz Holden we move now to
another original 1903 building, but this time in a quite different style from
Fairlop and Barkingside. The name Chigwell,
to people of a certain age probably conjures up images of Sharon, Tracey and
Dorian from the long running BBC sitcom ‘Birds of a Feather’ which was set in
Chigwell. This sets me off on a train of thought, as to whether it would be
possible to construct a Comedy Line linking underground stations which have a
connection with comedy programmes. Immediately East Acton comes to mind – it
was nearby Wormwood Scrubs prison which was used for the prison exteriors on
the opening sequence of the 70s sitcom Porridge. Shepherd’s Bush for Steptoe
and Son, and Tooting Broadway for Citizen Smith followed fairly hot on it’s
heels. Reluctantly I drag myself from this pleasant reverie, and file it away
for something to amuse me back on the walk from Roding Park to Buckhurst Hill.
Which is not to say that Chigwell Station is not worthy of attention itself,
because it very much is. Built for the Great Eastern Railway in 1903 I doubt
very much that its changed much in the interim. I can’t help wondering whether
the window frames are original, because they look very plain for the era. That
doesn’t really bother me though, because above the canopy the façade has a pair
of matched dutch gables. I love a dutch gable on an Edwardian or late Victorian
building. So you can imagine, I was like a pig in clover on a recent visit to Amsterdam. Even though I’ve
never visited the station before, if I was to make a list about stations which
have been connected to important things in my life, I would include it, because
this is where Miss Walker lived – the area, not the station – before she became
Mrs. Clark.
I’ve
thoroughly enjoyed my journey around the Hainault loop, but I’m quite happy to
leave the train and begin my walk at Roding
Valley. Actually the sooner the better, since Roding Valley station itself
veers more towards the eyesore than the sight for sore eyes end of the
attractiveness of stations scale. It’s a single story, orange brick building,
and like a lot of the Central line extension buildings it was commenced in the
late 30s, but not completed until the 40s. It certainly looks like a 1930s
building, but with a style such as modernism or art deco, because the buildings
are relatively minimalist in terms of decoration compared to earlier public
buildings, the details are vitally important, and if you get one thing wrong it
can spoil the appearance of the whole building. So having a window boarded up
has a really poor effect on this one.
Thankfully I have
neither the excuse nor time to stand around looking, as I step off towards the
main eastern arm of the Central Line, and the next station, Buckhurst Hill.
There’s a definite spring in my step. The sun is still out, I’ve eaten my
packed lunch, and there’s just five more stations to see before I can add the
Central Line to my completed list. This is a mood which a leisurely half hour
walk, and the sight of Buckhurst Hill
station does nothing to dispel. It’s a very pretty little W.N. Ashbee Great
Eastern Railway station from 1892, the oldest on this particular trip so far.
Certainly when I visited the façade looked to be immaculately maintained with
some gorgeous ornamental brickwork around the shallow arches of the windows.
I’d lay odds that these windows aren’t original though, but hey, you can’t have
everything you want all the time. I’m tempted to make an on the spot sketch of
this little gem like building, but in the end decide that it would be more
sensible to rattle off the next four stations in good time.
Having studied French, after a fashion,
to A Level I’d always pronounced the Bois of Theydon Bois as ‘bwah’. It made sense to me. Bois is French for
wood, and the next station is Epping, as in Forest. Some time ago, though, I
was reliably and authoritatively informed that in the name of the station, Bois
is pronounced to rhyme with noise. As I walk out of the train onto the platform
I find that I am unable to stop myself from singing “Theydon Bois, Theydon
Bois, laced up boots and corduroys.”A gent who looks to be of a similar vintage
to myself smiles at me. For those who aren’t of a similar vintage to myself, I
suggest you ask your parents, or failing that, your grandparents to explain
that reference. Speaking of which, according to Wikipedia, the village has
always been pronounced Boys or Boyce, and derives its name from the family who
held the manor in the 1300s. Interestingly it was the railway which fixed the
spelling at Bois. When the Great Eastern built their station here, the local
parish clerk suggested this would be the best spelling, bearing in mind nearby
Epping Forest. I apologise to those of you reading this who are currently
thinking “I don’t need to know that, kindly leave the stage” but the fact is
that I love finding out these little obscurities.
As for the
station building itself, I can’t for certain say when it was built. Looking at
it, I somehow doubt that it’s the original, since the window frames and the
ornamental brickwork on some of the corners suggest a similar vintage to the
1903 stations we saw on the Hainault loop. It’s a pleasant place, although I
can’t help wishing that the two storey building on the right had been left its
original red brick rather than being painted with the brilliant white that it
sported during my visit.
Epping
is a name I once used in a long poem I wrote at University. Without going into
too much detail, Dream Vision Poetry was a genre of poetry practiced in the 14th
century by Chaucer and some of
his contemporaries. It inevitably involved the voice in the poem being spirited
away in a dream, often to an idyllic, Eden-like setting which we would call by
the latin term – locus amoenus. Got that? Okay, so in this poem I wrote,
“I looked to
try and see where I was stepping.
I guessed locus
amoenus, maybe Epping.”
This was
more for the rhyme than anything else, since I’ve never been to Epping before
and have absolutely no idea whether it’s a locus amoenus, a locus horribilis,
or something in between. Actually, that’s still true, since I confine my
perusal of the surroundings to the station buildings itself. They’re rather
nice, rather reminiscent of Theydon Bois, although something of a mirror image
since the two storey wing is on the left this time. Once again, I’m unable to
conjure up any specific dates of construction, or architects’ name on the
phone, but as with Theydon Bois I’m pretty happy that it’s Edwardian or late
Victorian, which would make it originally a GER station. Which is where the
line ends, or at least, where it has ended since 1994. In that year, London
Transport ended the single track service between Epping and Ongar. I was always
intrigued by this on the map, as I have memories of it being represented by a
read and white line, and looking for all the world like a horizontal barber
pole. The memory my be cheating me on this one, I admit. There have been short
lived attempts to run services by private companies from Epping to Ongar since,
but since that’s not part of the underground network now, I don’t concern
myself with it.
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Three cheers
for the Central line! The longest journey you can make without changing trains
anywhere on the network is from West Ruislip to Epping, which is slightly more
than a whopping 34 miles. This makes me even happier that I didn’t make a rule
that I have to walk between every station. If that were the case then this
challenge would take years rather than the months I’ve allotted for it. It has
the 4th greatest number of stations, after the District, Piccadilly,
and the Northern line which boasts just one more. Not including Osterley and
Spring Grove, which is no longer a station, I’ve now sketched 155 stations.
That’s 57.4% or 31/54. I think a small celebration might be in order.
It’s fairly
obvious which line I need to tackle next. There are 50 stations on the Northern
Line, only five of which I’ve already visited on other lines. That splits
nicely into three trips, and more importantly, it should take me to 200,
leaving only a measly 70 to do on the remaining lines.
