Northern Line Section Two: High Barnet to Old Street

It was a relatively simple choice. Either start at High Barnet and work south, or at Morden and work north. These are both going to be long sections, and I’ve only visited two of the stations already on other trips. I do know, from several misadventures driving from Tottenham to Wimbledon, that there’s a run of memorable stations south of the river. So it makes sense to save them for the third section, when I’m more likely to be feeling the effects of tube fatigue.

I start this trip somewhat later than my previous one, nonetheless I am at High Barnet still relatively early in the morning. I would feel disappointed if this was the only station I am going to visit, since the architecture of this is what I would describe as late 20^th century period public lavatory. It’s a very nondescript block, and I find myself amazed to see Wikipedia suggests that the station retains many of its original Victorian features. Not on the outside, it doesn’t. And I’ll be honest, in my bleary eyed only had one cup of coffee this morning and it wasn’t enough state, I wouldn’t normally pay attention to the rather lovely canopies, and the slender metal columns holding them, but it’s certainly a contrast to the station’s unlovely exterior.

While I’m waiting for the train to depart, I check my notebook, where I have jotted down ideas for games to play at such times. One that I’ve come up with is the Underground version of the Meaning of Liff. If you haven’t read “The Meaning of Liff” books, by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd, then can I suggest you might enjoy tracking down copies? The idea behind these wonderful little books is that there are many experiences, actions etc. for which there are currently no adequate words in English. Yet there are thousands of words doing nothing other than hanging around on signposts and gazetteers and atlases as names of places. What the book does is to define what some of these names could be used for. I played the game last year on the Vienna U Bahn, where the only two that I came up with which are even worth printing are – Stubentor – the shortest and most useless of the Transformers, who transforms from robot into dustbin – and – Kardinal Nagl-Platz – a popular regular cast member of the Vatican TV channel’s answer to Sesame Street.

Applying this to High Barnet I come up with 2 workable definitions- a) Hairdresser’s technical term for the hairstyles favoured by leading female characters in American soap operas of the 1980s – b) Actor’s slang for a hairpiece which is in dire need of dry cleaning – as in this passage from the little known autobiography of Billy Bishop, failed variety performer and TV host – “Dear old Brucie was a lovely man, and very clean and fastidious, especially where his wigs were concerned. Now Frankie Howerd, he was the complete opposite. Lovely man but he would insist on wearing that ratty old High Barnet.”

I barely have time to complete composing then writing this definition in my notebook before we arrive at the next station, Totteridge and Whetstone. Whetstone has already been bagged for another meaning, but if Totteridge was on its own it might well be a prime candidate. It isn’t on it’s own though, so I put that thought back in its box and exit the station. Hmm, quite nice too. It’s another of the Victorian country stations we’ve found in places on the network, although this one isn’t the full Railway Children as some of them have been. It’s certainly not at all unpleasant – I like yellow brick buildings – but there’s what appears to be a conscious lack of ornamentation in the brickwork, which isn’t something I’d necessarily have expected of a building of this vintage. Somehow the plasticky roundel attached to the front of the building seems more out of place here than with most of the other stations that I’ve visited. Nonetheless, the platforms, like those of High Barnet, exude a calm and pleasant Victorian air, and it’s no hardship to spend 6 minutes in a reverie in which I define Osterley as – the state of being in which men feel that if they ring into work and put on a hoarse voice they can convince the secretary, and themselves, that they are too poorly to go in, and thus get to spend a day in front of the telly watching their Doctor Who DVDs, and drinking Lucozade in order to keep up appearances.

Woodside Park may well be contemporary with the previous station, as the brickwork is of the same colour and similarly unadorned. However this is a bigger building, and the overall configuration puts me in mind of a large pub. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part, although this is unlikely since I’m strictly a ‘glass of bucks fizz at Christmas and that’s me lot’ type of drinker. I do like the way that the station building looms a little over the platform. From the right angle this is most appealing, and it’s the third station in a row which has really rather lovely Victorian canopies. A glance at the map informs me that we’re about to run the gamut of the Finchleys. Still, there’s enough time to define Turnham Green as ‘the exact shade of colour that out of date pork products become when they have moved from the ‘inadvisable to eat’ category to the ‘about to evolve into a new life form’ category.’

Thus far we’ve had little sign today of the typical Northern Line seriousness I noted on our last trip. West Finchley provides this. Granted, the platforms are pretty similar to what we have seen on every station of today’s section so far. However, the exit/entrance is pleasant enough, but as you can hopefully see from the picture it’s pretty small, and the ticket office inside has been closed for quite some time. There’s a feeling of quiet efficiency here which is quite at odds with the sleepy atmosphere of the three previous stations, which even the Victorian feel of the platforms can’t quite dispel. I can’t help feeling sure that Finchley’s former MP, the late Baroness Thatcher, would have approved. 

Finchley follows the tried and tested Hounslow method of West – Central – East, and so the next station we arrive at is Finchley Central. As I alight from the train I do a quick double take to ensure that I haven’t taken the wrong train and ended up back at Woodside Park, since the layout and the view of the station buildings from the platform seems very similar. From the outside of the station I can see that there are differences, although the buildings have the same yellow brickwork, and look similar, but not the same in outline. One interesting feature is what appears to be a bricked up doorway just to the left of the main entrance, and I like the proportions of the windows, with their gently arched tops. I steel myself for the likelihood that this will be the last of the Victorian country style stations of this trip, since I know that Charles Holden designed the next station, East Finchley, and that the line enters the longest tunnel of the whole network after there. Before the train arrives, though, I nip across to platform three to pay homage to Harry Beck, who is memorialised with a plaque, since this was the station he used most regularly.

From the platform, East Finchley takes my breath away. A pair of glazed and rounded stairwells rise to the street level station, and these are one of the station’s truly outstanding art deco features – in fact I might go so far as to say one of ANY station’s truly outstanding features. From the street the exterior is good, especially where you can see the stairwells, but not quite as good as the platform view. Particularly worthy of note is the stylised art deco sculpture, The Archer, by Eric Aumonier. Some sources say that it symbolises the link with the Royal Forest of Enfield. Others say that it is pointing its arrow in the direction of Morden, the other end of the longest tunnel on the network. For all that I know this may well be true. Even if it isn’t, the whole station is a fine piece of art deco, and must have been quite inspiring when it was first unveiled in 1940, considering what the country, and London and its citizens were going through at the time.

This may sound morbid, but I like a good cemetery, and the older I get, the more I like them. What has this got to do with the price of tea? Only that all I know about Highgate is that it is home to Highgate Cemetery, one of London’s great cemeteries, and buried there is none other than Karl ‘Lock up yer horny handed sons of the proletariat’ Marx. I visited the cemetery in the mid 80s. Not, I might add to pay homage to the misguided political theorist. No, it was because my mum always used to derive great pleasure telling us that Karl Marx is buried next to a man called Spencer – Marx and Spencer, see? Well, I wanted to see if this was true or a load of toffee. It turned out to be not completely true, but it has to be said that the old beardy’s tomb is directly opposite the poet Herbert Spencer. So I’m happy to call that one an honourable draw. As for the station, well some original buildings from GNR days do remain, and they are far more inspiring than the current entrance, as the picture should show. Basically it’s a hole where the walkway upwards breaks the surface. Charles Holden did originally design some proper station buildings, but the war came along and put paid to any of that. Shame.

Archway station is what I’d expect as we come closer to the centre of the Northern Line, a gloomy dose of seriousness. I could weep to think that there was a Leslie Green station here once, which was replaced by a Charles Holden station, which was replaced by, well, this. The station is situated at the bottom of the uninspiring Archway tower, a high rise block of little obvious aesthetic merit, and frankly is a pretty good example of why people generally don’t rave about civic architecture from the 1970s. OK, so it’s not all concrete, but even the tiled parts of the walls are dark and uninspiring. Why did we do this? In fact, why do we still do this? Port Talbot has had a new station building built within the last decade – faced for the most part with grey metal and grey bricks. The town has a poor enough image as it is, without this symphony of dullness and depression greeting them as they exit the buildings. I look for a silver lining to Archway station, but can’t find one, so duck back inside to move on.

It proves to be a wise decision. Apart from adding “Parsons Green – definition – the guilt money paid reluctantly to the local vicar when he asks for a donation to the church roof fund.”, Tufnell Park proves to be our first Leslie Green station of this trip. I remember that our previous trip introduced us to Chalk Farm, the finest Leslie Green station I’ve yet seen. This isn’t quite that good, but it’s really quite impressive. Three windows on the side this time, and I always think that Leslie Green stations look particularly good on a corner site like this. I notice that there’s a permanently closed ticket office, but whatever the case the staff who work here seem to be doing a sterling job keeping the place looking very spruce. Mind you, if you worked in a building like this, you’d probably want to keep it looking this good. Whereas if you work in Archway, you probably get issued with free anti-depressants.

Ah, the vagaries of the English language! I emerge from the impressive 5 arched façade of the Leslie Green station at Kentish Town, and immediately set about googling to find out what the connection with Kent is. Non-existent, apparently. It comes, supposedly from caen-ditch – the bottom of a waterway. There you go. Shame. I was looking forward to seeing oast houses, hop poles and strawberry fields. I shall stop that now, or my relatives in Kent will not forgive me. The station has both under and overground platforms, since it connects with national rail services as well as the Northern line. I have read that there used to be a South Kentish Town station between this one and Camden Town, so I begin the walked section here. It’s only about 15 minutes, and before then yes, joy of joys, there is the disused South Kentish Town station, now a retail outlet, but still clearly the work of Leslie Green, even if the hemispherical windows lack the white paint on the frames.

Camden Town, you might remember from the previous trip, is the station which Madness originally wanted to be photographed in front of for the cover of Absolutely. This is a 4 window Leslie Green effort, and it’s perfectly fine. I do like the orange and yellow brickwork of the storey built onto the top of the station building. However it isn’t as good as Chalk Farm, the station which actually did feature on the album cover. I have to admit that I’m quite happy to note from the map that this is where the Edgware arm rejoins the main routes. Only 5 more stations to go, and the next is where I’ve planned to stop for a late lunch. 

Lots of people have an interest in Mornington Crescent tube station, and in many cases its because of the inscrutable ‘game’ on Radio 4’s “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue”. With me, my early 80s interest in the station was through the fact that there is a statue of Richard Cobden MP, the radical 19^th century MP very nearby. Back in the day, I used to believe that Richard Cobden was a direct ancestor. That was the story that my grandmother – born a Cobden – always told. Well, I’m sorry, but nope. He is, as far as I can tell, a distant cousin – we share common Cobden ancestors, but that’s it. As for the station, well, it was closed for one year to work on the lifts in 1992. It didn’t reopen until 1998, and then, one suspects, it was mainly due to a concerted campaign from fans of the afore mentioned radio show – the stars of which at the time reopened the station in a ceremony in 1998.

Any discussion of any part of the station buildings at Euston is probably sooner or later going to come to the Doric Arch, the gateway to the mainline terminus, which was demolished in 1962. Apparently the demolition of the arch was a huge spur to the nascent conservation organisations in the UK. In the 1990s, TV historian Dan Cruickshank discovered that at least 60% of the arch was dumped in the River Lea. There have been periodic discussions since about rebuilding the Arch, but as I write this not one stone has yet been laid. As for Euston underground well, with the honourable exceptions of Kings Cross, Waterloo and Paddington (District), the Underground stations connected to mainline termini have been largely functional and uninspiring, and Euston is no exception. There are good words to describe the entrance – grey being one, and depressing being another. This is all the more galling considering that there was a perfectly good Leslie Green Euston station building just down the road, being used until recently as an electricity sub station.

It's funny to think that we’ve only been to Kings Cross once before on our cumulative subterranean  odyssey, bearing in mind that no fewer than 6 underground lines stop here. Which means, my rudimentary schoolboy arithmetic informs me, that we have another 4 visits to make in future trips. It makes sense, then, to eke out my store of Kings Cross facts, so I’ll content myself for now with saying that the name derives from a statue of King George IV, erected here in 1830 at a crossroads. George IV was another Mastermind subject of mine, but I’ll say no more than this, the King’s reputation was such that I can’t imagine there were great howls of protest when the statue was removed a within 2 decades.

I’m pretty sure that Angel, where I alight next, is the first station I’ve visited to be named after a pub. Had Hampstead’s North End station ever been finished and opened, then there’s the distinct possibility it might have been named Bull and Bush, but the station buildings were never built. I say that Angel is named after a pub. Actually , it’s so named because it’s in the Angel district, and this was named after a pub, immortalised as Angel, Islington in Monopoly. The original inn is long gone. Coming back to Monopoly, it’s a sobering thought that so few of the properties on the traditional London board share names with tube stations. Even the 4 stations themselves have one cuckoo in the nest, Fenchurch Street, which is not on the network. If we’re being pedantic, and disallowing Whitechapel/Whitechapel Road and Oxford Circus/Oxford Street, Piccadilly Circus/Piccadilly then there’s the other three stations, Leicester Square, Bond Street and , er, that’s it. Parts of what are now Charing Cross Station were once called Trafalgar Square, and there has also been a Strand station in the past, but that’s about it. This probably says more about Waddingtons, who based their choice of properties on a weekend visit by one of the family who apparently was not the least bit familiar with London. As for the station, well, making my way from the platform to the exit involves riding the longest escalator on the network, a vertigo inducing rise of 90 feet in 200 metres. The entrance itself is housed in what looks to be a 1930s block, and although it tends to be cast in shadow by the ubiquitous blocky canopy, the arrangement of windows is not unpleasant.

It's mid afternoon, and I realise that I haven’t eaten lunch yet. My sandwiches have been sitting in my rucksack for too long to have done anything to improve the flavour, and so I decide to continue to my last stop for today, Old Street, and then see if there’s anything hot on offer within reasonable walking distance. When I exit from the station I see that it’s completely sub surface now, the previous Stanley Heaps designed station having been replaced in 1968. Still, one saving grace I discover is that there’s an Italian restaurant very close by, with excellent reviews for its pizza, which I am happy to report are no exaggeration.

When I leave the restaurant I see that there’s still a few hours of daylight left, and make a snap decision to push on at least one more stop. What with stations on the line I’ve already sketched, today’s total so far is 15, and if I can just do one more today, then all that will leave for tomorrow is the stations south of the river, from London Bridge to Morden for the next trip.

Moorgate is a name with resonance to anyone old enough to remember the 1975 Moorgate tube crash, in which over 40 people were killed, and over another 70 injured. The driver made didn’t stop at the end of the line, and the resultant crash was the worst ever disaster on the network in peacetime. Today, there’s a respectful memorial plaque to victims of the tragedy. In fact the whole mien of the station’s Millfields entrance is sombre. The street level story seems to be clad in Portland stone, and is topped by a block which looks to have been built in the early 20^th century. The arched entrances or windows on one side appear to have been filled in, which does nothing to enhance the building’s undoubted appeal. In terms of proportions, I’d say it is possibly contemporary with Leslie Green, but Wikipedia proves unforthcoming with details to either confirm or deny this.

I make a quick mental inventory, and find that I’m feeling pretty good. The expected bout of tube fatigue hasn’t really materialised. In fact, what I feel is a little quiet satisfaction. I’ve bagged another 16 Northern Line stations, along the stretch of the line I expected to be the most tedious. Into the bargain I’ve also bagged a disused Leslie Green building. On the next trip I’ll get to go south of the river, and that’s always interesting, not to mention the fact that I know there’s a run of Charles Holdens from Tooting Bec all the way to the end of the line. Bring it on! (Just not today, though.)