District Line Section Three: Bow Road to Upminster

I felt very pleased with myself, having done slightly more than two thirds of the District Line in just two trips, and was quite looking forward to riding a stretch of line that I’d never ridden on before. I parked fairly close to Boston Manor station, then changed at Hammersmith, which is my usual way of catching the District eastwards. 

Bow Road station opened in 1902, and I fancy that the station is the original 1902 building. It’s been grade II listed since the early 70s, apparently, and that seems very erly compared to most listed stations which were listed since the start of the 80s. I find it interesting that this station would be listed, since although it’s of a perfectly pleasing appearance, it’s not the sort of station which makes you step back and admire it, in the way that, say, Baron’s Court does. As a piece of tube trivia, the station is just before a tunnel which trains from Upminster enter. The gradient down into the tunnel is supposed to be the steepest anywhere on the network, although certainly coming eastwards from Mile End I can’t say that I noticed anything out of the ordinary. My ears did pop, but then they always do that when I’m on a Piccadilly Line train coming out of the tunnel between Earl’s Court and Baron’s Court.

Bromley by Bow has a small but not totally insignificant part in my family history. My Mum’s maiden name was Joyce, and it was her great grandfather, George Joyce, who first moved to London. George was an interesting character, just going by what 19^th century census returns told me. In 1851 he was a young boy, living with his parents in the Berkshire village of Chilton Foliat where his father John was the village blacksmith. I don’t know how or where George received his education, but by 1871 he was a clerk living in Reading. By 1871 he was the headmaster of the village school in Fernhurst Sussex. 30 years later he was a shipping clerk, and living in Bromley by Bow, before making his final move to Ealing, where the family stayed for a couple of generations, and where I actually grew up. As for the station, well, even though the original District Railway station was opened in 1902 while he was there, I somehow doubt that George would ever have seen the one that’s there now. It looks like a typically blocky 60s/70s half hearted effort, about which the less said is probably better.

It was only really for a couple of years that West Ham station was actually the closest station to West Ham Football Club, for the Boleyn Ground is actually closer to Upton Park station, and their present stadium, the former Olympic stadium, is much closer to Stratford. Again it’s a station whose modern ticket hall entrance, dating back to about 1999, doesn’t do a great deal for me, but at least is nowhere near as depressing as those from 30 years earlier. But, I don’t know, I just can’t get excited about station entrances which look like shopping malls

This is not an accusation you could make about Plaistow station. This is a big, impressive hunk of Edwardian architecture. I was surprised by the height of it – so far the older District Line stations have consisted of just the one fairly level floor at street level. Plaistow is far more imposing than the usual, and the ornamental brick arches and lines, and the cornices, prevent impressive from becoming oppressive. I also like the ornamental flower beds outside. I don’t really know what I was expecting on this eastward stretch of the line, but I suppose I was expecting a urn of stations like Bow Road, or maybe 1970s replacements. 

It was all change again for the station at Upton Park. Although not that very much, since it was constructed at the same time as Plaistow had been. This is a different slice of Edwardiana, though. It’s shorter yet longer, with its roofline boasting a pleasingly symmetrical set of gables. In a way these remind me of parts of the Hanwell and West Ealing sections of the Uxbridge Road in Ealing while I was growing up. So I’m told the station name has, at times, been used to indicate someone who is not quite the full shilling, as my Nan used to say – Upton Park, as in two stops short of Barking (mad). I was very tempted at this point to stop for a small celebration since this was actually the 100^th station I’ve visited since I’ve started the challenge. I’d already sketched more than a third of all the current stations on the London Underground, and I hadn’t even realised it.  

Mind you, I mentally pulled myself up as I realised that this still left me 170 stations to go. This soon became 169 though. Station 101, East Ham was surely built and designed at the same time and by the same architect as station 100, Upton Park, since, to my admittedly untrained eye, it appeared extremely similar. Not that I was complaining. This combination of red brick and yellow London bricks is something I find extremely familiar from my childhood, and it speaks to me of my primary school in Hanwell in particular. I haven’t mentioned this earlier, but since Aldgate East we’ve been sharing with the Hammersmith and City Line. That’s a grand total of 11 stations, which is 11 fewer stations we have to do when we come to that line, which can’t be bad.  

The end of the line for the Hammersmith and City is the next station I visited on this District Line trip, Barking. Barking looks important, as befits a station which is the end of one Underground Line, and an interchange with both the London Overground and national rail. Important, yes, but not exactly attractive, with its uptilted apron overhanging the entrance, dating back to the early 1960s. The famous Nicholas Pevsner rather liked it and called it one of the very best of modern stations. I’m not entirely sure that, from this distance, almost 60 years later, I totally agree with him. It’s certainly not ugly, but calling it one of the best stations from the 50s and 60s isn’t necessarily that much of a compliment considering the poor nature of the competition. 

It’s the District Line and nothing but the District Line from here until we reach the end of the line at Upminster. The next station, Upney, was a little bit of a disappointment. At first glance as I left the building I wondered if it was another lacklustre 50s/60s creation. A few more minutes looking convinced me that this actually was more likely to date back to the 30s, the roofline above the station sign being a bit of a clincher, along with the dark brown brickwork. Subsequent research showed that I was right about that. It’s not ugly, but when you compare it with the stations Holden and contemporaries were designing for the Piccadilly line at about the same time, it seems to be a very lacklustre effort.  

I wasn’t able to discover for certain who was the architect of Upney, but bearing in mind the similarity of the next station, Becontree, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was designed by the same architect, William Henry Hamlyn, who was also the chief architect for the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. Despite their similarity, I rather liked Becontree a little more than Upney. Maybe this was just because the sun had come out briefly as I emerged from the station, and maybe it was because I stopped for a mini pork pie, which usually guarantees an improvement in my mood. 9 stations done, and only 6 more to go, I was quite a happy bunny.

 Dagenham Heathway was built at the same time as the previous two stations, it was a bit different, and if anything this little station is, I’m afraid, rather more nondescript. This might well be because when it originally opened it was on the LMS – London, Midland and Scottish Railway, which was one of the big four railways from the late 20s until nationalisation of the railways in the late 40s. Research says that the station buildings were renovated during the noughties, but it’s difficult to imagine that much of this can have involved the exterior, since it’s so bland and featureless. It’s a classic example of a whythe’ell station, as in whythe’ell is ‘e taking a photo of that station. I haven’t actually heard anyone saying this, but I’ve had a few looks which were just as eloquent as the actual words. As a rule, nobody looks askance at anyone brandishing a camera at anything in Central London, but when you get to the outlying areas, unless the station is an obviously striking building it’s not uncommon for you to get funny looks. I mean, why one Earth would anyone ever want to photograph a station like Ickenham, for example, a prime example of a whythe’ell if ever I saw one.
Although

I have to admit that when I was coming towards the end of the Piccadilly Line, when I got within half a dozen stations of Cockfosters I was beginning to feel a bit of tube fatigue, that is, a nagging desire to rush through to the end of the line and just get it over with. In retrospect, it was only for the last 4 Piccadilly sections, after I’d finished walking between Turnpike Lane and Bounds Green. Well, tube fatigue really started to strike as we approached Dagenham East. This was maybe a little unfair to the station itself, considering that it’s pretty similar to Upney and Becontree. But that just exacerbated the feeling, I suppose. Familiarity breeds contempt, and déjà vu was setting in quite badly, with the thought that there were still 4 stations to go, and for all I knew they might be just more of the same. There was plenty of daylight time left, so the only thing that could possibly stop me from finishing the District Line on this trip was a case of the soddits.

Thankfully, Elm Park was just different enough to keep me interested. In some ways the station reminded me a little bit of Boston Manor, which is one of my sentimental favourites, only without that station’s distinctive tower. The look is distinctly art deco, and the station was opened in 1935. It scores over the previous few for me because of the semi circular ends of the apron extending out from the flat roof. I think it’s this, and the later safety railings which particularly remind me of Boston Manor.

The day clouded over somewhat as I returned to the platform to take the next train to Hornchurch. This station was, I’m afraid, an almost soddit-inducing Upney identikit, although it does bost the saving grace of not having the window grilles on the left of the entrance covered up, as they are on the previous stations of this sort. Looking at these highly similar District line stations just makes my admiration for Charles Holden’s work all the greater, since although many of them have obvious similarities, they are all at least subtly different. Well, all of the ones I’ve visited so far. Atleast, by this stage there were only two stations left, and there was no way that I was going to cut this trip short now, which would only mean I’d have to trek out all this way again just for two stations.

Upminster Bridge, penultimate station on the District line, is not exactly a pretty sight. However it is, thankfully, an interesting one. Like the previous few stations, this was originally built and operated by the LMS, which may be the reason for the almost identical design of some of them. However, this is different. For one thing, it has a large structure rising up behind the entrance, in the way that many Charles Holden stations have ticket halls which rise behind the entrance. Mind you, there the similarity ends. This one is blocky, and could desperately do with some glazed screens. Still, at least it’s different from a lot of what we’ve seen on this trip and so at least has novelty value. I would imagine that maybe the station, with the façade having the station entrance balanced by the two shop buildings, this maybe looks quite appealing when the sun shines. When the clouds are threatening a soaking though, as they were when I visited, the place looks miserable, and rather unloved.

Upminster came as a complete surprise. It looks as I’d expect a late Victorian national railway station in a fairly prosperous market town would look. Yet research tells me that the entrance and ticket hall at least were another LMS building opened in 1932. Maybe this building incorporated parts of, or added to the Victorian station from 1885 – my rather sketchy research source wasn’t very specific. I could tell you that I allowed myself a certain amount of satisfaction that I’d now completed all of the stations on both Piccadilly and District Lines, the two lines with the most stations, but in all honesty I was exhausted, and didn’t even want to think about stations until I left the next train at Hammersmith on the way back.  

----------------------------------------------------------

A couple of days later, though, I did start to reflect on what I’d done, and what I had left to do. The District line has 60 stations, and the Piccadilly Line 53. Granted, a number of them are on both so were only sketched once, but even so I’d made significant inroads to the challenge. My plan was to work my way through the lines with the most stations first. Logically this suggested that I should tackle the Northern Line next, since it had the next highest number of stations with 50. However, the fact was that the Central line only had one fewer station with 49. With the Northern Line I knew that south of the Thames at least, we had a good run of interesting stations. With the Central line, I couldn’t be at all certain. So it might be a good thing to tackle the Central now, while I still had heart for the challenge, and while tube fatigue wasn’t setting in until I got to the end of each line. Also, the Central was one of my ‘home’ lines, with the shorter Western arm ending at Ealing Broadway. Good enough, Central Line it would be.

District Line: Section Two: Sloane Square to Mile End

If I’d gone out the next day to continue the District Line I think I would have found it difficult to raise the enthusiasm to continue. In the couple of weeks since the previous trip, though, I’d found my hwyl again and was raring to go. It also helped that, having done such a marathon trip as the first section, and having done a number of District stations while drawing the Piccadilly Line, I found that I’d already sketched 30 out of the 60 stations.  

Looking on the map I could see that half of the remaining stations, working east from Sloane Square, would get me to Mile End, which would be a perfectly suitable goal for this one trip. Thus far, the District Line had struck me by the variety of architectural styles on the line so far. Thinking back to the Piccadilly, although there are enough exceptions to the rule, generally I’d seen Holden – and Holden-esque – stations on the western and north eastern stretches, and Leslie Greens in the centre. There had been no distinctly District line style to emerge, and I was intrigued to see whether this would continue to be the case as I moved through central London.  

Before setting out I did think fairly long and hard about which section I should walk, and in the end I plumped for another route I know quite well, Cannon Street to Tower Hill via Monument. Sloane Square to start then. I have to be honest, this is the kind of tube station which really doesn’t do a great deal for me. To be fair, the previous station was largely destroyed through bombing during World War II, and I read that the rebuilt station was largely similar to the 1920s station which had been destroyed. I understand that space in central London is at a premium, so I can see why the decision was made to build onto the top of the station building, presumably in the 60s or 70s, but I can’t help wishing that they hadn’t built something quite so ugly.                   

Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the new station entrance to Victoria Underground is ugly. I believe that this light and airy entrance to the underground ticket hall was opened as part of the 2018 revamp of the station. At the time of writing, Victoria is allegedly only the 4^th busiest station on the line. It has been the busiest at other times. Such things can only ever be a matter of estimation I would have thought. Still, that’s not bad going considering that it only services three lines, the District, the Circle, and the eponymous Victoria Line. As a point of trivia interest, working on a similar principle to Bakerloo, it was considered naming the line the Viking line – from Victoria and KING’s Cross at one time.

So to either one of the most impressive, or one of the least impressive stations on this – or any – Underground Line. You see, the current St. James Park station. You see, it was rebuilt as part of Charles Holden’s headquarters of the UERL, 55 Broadway. As you can see from the sketch, that’s a really impressive art deco ziggurat. But the station is really just the three doorways on the street level, and that really isn’t all that impressive. Well, you pays yer money and makes yer own mind up about that one. The fact is though that the station, and the whole of 55 Broadway is a grade 1 listed building, and I think it may well be the only tube station of which this may be true. To give a very brief explanation of the whole listed building thing, basically a grade II listed building is a building of special interest warranting every effort to preserve it. Many underground stations have this status. A grade II* listed building is a particularly important building of more than special interest, and a grade I listed building is a building of exceptional interest. The amount of legal protection given to such buildings increases with the importance of the listing. Almost all listed tube stations are either grade II or grade II*.

Since 2001 the actual entrance to Westminster station has been through Portcullis House, opened in that year. This is an inoffensive office block, with a particularly striking roof with its rows of tall chimneys which enter into what I believe is called an interesting architectural discussion with the adjacent palace of Westminster. To be honest it’s one of those stations which is far more striking inside than out, and when I first used it not long after the opening of the Jubilee Line extension I was struck by the glad and chrome elevator wells, and thought that it was a little like walking into a sci fi movie. Come to think of it, that may well have been what people felt the first time that Southgate station was opened in the 30s.

In the mid 80s, when I was attending Goldsmiths College of London University, I sometimes got Embankment, whence I’d walk up Villiers Street to Charing Cross. Coming out of the station there was often a guy selling flowers on a stall, and I’d say hello to him when I saw him, because I’m a nice bloke, and he seemed a nice bloke. A lot of people probably know what’s coming next. I’m pretty sure that this was Buster Edwards, one of the Great Train Robbers, although I never had the slightest idea until the release of the Phil Collins biopic in the late 80s. As for the station itself, I believe that this particular station building was opened just before the start of the First World War, and so I believe was one of Sir John Betjeman’s favourites.

the tube across the river, using what was then the East London Line, then get the circle or district from Whitechapel to

I have a feeling that this stretch of the District Line was constructed at the same time as, and as part of the Victoria Embankment. As a digression, the Victoria Embankment was built by one of London’s great unsung heroes, Joseph Bazalgette. I say unsung, because he should really be far better remembered than he is. He left a visible mark on the city with the building of the Embankment and the Albert Bridge, one of the prettiest bridges in Central London. However he should be remembered even more for pioneering Victorian London’s sewer system, which was responsible for clearing London of the scourge of cholera, amongst other benefits. 

Temple Station sits on the Embankment, and dates back to 1870 , and it’s a very appealing place, especially when you discover it out of the blue. Its name is taken from the Temple area, so named after the Temple Church of the Knights Templar, originally built in the 12^th century. Incidentally, Temple is the only station on the Underground which shares its name with a station on the Paris Metro.  

Blackfriars, next station along the line, is one of those rebuilt stations which might be kindly described as a symphony in glass and chrome. To be fair anything is better than 1970s cement. The gracious curve of the northern entrance on Queen Victoria Street is just slightly reminiscent of a couple of the 30s stations on other lines, but it’s anyone’s guess as to whether it will stand the test of time as well as Wood Green, for example.  

If you look at the main entrance of Mansion House Station, you might be surprised to learn that it was actually built in the 1990s. No glass or chrome to be seen, just some fairly sober stonework which looks more reminiscent of the 1890s. This replaced a Charles Holden station which was apparently in a similar style to his Northern line stations of the 1920s. The Mansion House itself is the official residence of the Lord Mayor of London (the City of London, as opposed to the Mayor of London). Apparently Mansion House station is further away from the actual Mansion House than either Cannon Street or Monument, but there you go. Any network which will call two completely separate stations the same name has a rather slapdash attitude towards naming stations anyway. 

Speaking of Cannon Street, the ticket hall of the underground station is subsurface, so the entrance to the tube station is pretty much a hole in the wall. As hole in the wall stations go though, this is one of the more attractive ones. Work on it was completed in 2012 I believe, and although it really looks nothing like the style of a Charles Holden station, it is in its own way a pleasing combination of cement, glass and metalwork, which are all in harmonious proportions with each other. Not that I had a massive amount of time to stand and admire the station since this was the point of the trip where I’d made my mind up to continue on foot. 

In all honesty it doesn’t take a huge amount of time to walk along Cannon Street from there to Monument station. Now, this is a part of London that is very important to me for a number of reasons. The Monument itself is Sir Christopher Wren’s monument to the Great Fire of London. In 1977 I ascended it for the first time. There are 311 steps to the viewing platforms at the top, which represent the 311 feet separating the Monument from the site on Pudding Lane where the fire started. Back then the nearby Natwest Tower had only recently become the tallest building in the UK, and there was still a fantastic view across the city. The view has, I’m afraid, worsened every time I’ve been back since. The Monument stands on Fish Street Hill which, up until 1831, was the main road leading directly down through the church yard of St. Magnus the Martyr onto Old London Bridge. As well as stations, I have a thing about bridges, and once a long time ago won the BBCs Mastermind answering questions on London Bridge. Well, that was in what seems like another life, but it always brings a warm glow to visit the Monument, and look at the old bridge in my mind’s eye.

Back in the 70s, when I first formed an interest  in the Underground for itself, one of the little odd things which used to intrigue me on the Tube map was the zigzag line between Monument, and Bank station on the Central line which represented the escalator link between the two stations. I was a little disappointed when I actually rode it for the first time. I mean, it was an escalator. I’m not sure what I expected, but there was no good reason to expect anything else. Still, bearing that in mind I did nip into the station and use the escalator across to Bank. It took me a minute or two of mooching around outside before I found the statue of James Greathead. He’s another unsung hero of modern London. James Greathead developed the tunnelling shield used for the original deep level tube lines in London, based on Marc Brunel’s original shield which he and his son Isambard used to build the Thames Tunnel, which was part of the Underground until the East London line was hived off to the Overground. Walking around brought me to the new entrance on the Walbrook, which you can see in the sketch, before I completed the walk past the Tower of London to Tower Hill station. 

Tower Hill is another station which looks rather like a hole in the wall. However it is well wroth having a good look around the environs of the station. Apart from the fact that you can stand by the entrance to the station and look across at a good view of the Tower of London complex, if you take a walk around you will soon come across an unassuming cylindrical structure which looks rather like an overgrown pillar box.  This is the northern entrance to the Tower Subway, which was built beneath the river, and was the first ever tunnel created using cast iron shields, which was the preferred mode of construction for the Underground’s first ever deep level tubes. At one stage it even had a small, cable powered railway running through it. This was never a great economic success, and it has not been open to the public for more than a century. At the moment it carries telecommunication cables under the Thames.

Back onto the train then for the final push eastwards to Mile End. Before that, though, there was Aldgate East. This is where the Circle Line goes its own sweet way to Aldgate. According to my research the current station opened in 1938 after having been resited from its original position, which incidentally enabled London transport to close two stations – the original Aldgate East and St. Mary’s Whitechapel. This though makes it one of those odd stations to look older than it actually is – what with the arched entrance and the ornamented façade it somehow looks some 30 years older than it actually is supposed to be. 

The next station, Whitechapel, is one of those stations where I’ve often stood on the platform, but had never seen the outside of the station building before starting on the challenge. In my first couple of months at University I lived with my Uncle, Aunt and cousins in Woodford, which meant a journey on the central line every morning to Mile End, the District Line to White Chapel, and the East London Line to New Cross or New Cross Gate. Well, as I mentioned earlier the East London Line hasn’t been part of the underground network since 2007, opening in 2010 as part of the London Overground. Well, we can’t complain. I should imagine that more of the Underground goes overground than underground, so it’s only natural that some of the Overground goes underground. As for Whitechapel Station itself, the kindest thing I can say is that its shiny new entrance is nicer than the kind of new stations put up in the 1970s. Sadly it’s not a patch on the 1902 entrance that closed in 2015, and that’s a real shame.

Thankfully Stepney Green Station has largely been left well enough alone.  This means that we’re back to a recognisably Metropolitan and District Railway design ethic. It’s a 20^th century station, although only just, having originally been built in 1902. Now that we were outside of Central London, the only ideas I had about what I’d find were based on the little bit of research I’d done before the trip. So I was pleasantly surprised by Stepney Green, especially after some of the uninspiring rebuilt fare I’d seen during this particular section of the challenge.

I’m glad to say that the idea of finishing this trip with a flourish was made into a reality by Mile End station. The station was designed by Stanley Heaps, and actually opened after the end of the   I think that the glazed sreens which incorporate the roundel show a debt of inspiration to Charles Holden’s Northern Line stations from the 1920s. This building came about as part of the Central line extension East, rather than conforming to any particular District Line design ethic. I don’t care.     Maybe I’m being unnecessarily romantic about this, but a building like this opening so soon after the end of the war is something that I can imagine as a welcome sign that better, brighter days were ahead.

Second World War, however

-------------------------------------

I suppose that I shouldn’t have been too surprised at the variety of different architectural styles in this central London section of the District Line. I thought something similar when I did the mammoth central section of the Piccadilly Line. The westernmost parts of the line were marked by a notably Piccadilly Line design ethic, which is hardly surprising since several of the station buildings were actually built for the Piccadilly Line extension of the 30s. Both lines South of the river proved to have a bit of a hodgepodge of styles, dictated in several cases by the LSWR or Southern Railway styles of the times at which they were built. I did wonder whether a distinctly District Railway style – maybe something along the lines of Barons and Earls Courts – would be more obvious as we reached East.

DIstrict Line Section One: Ealing Broadway to Richmond, Wimbledon, Olympia and Edgware Road

Section One: Ealing Broadway to Richmond, Wimbledon, Olympia and Edgware Road.

I’ll tell you the thinking behind this section. Between South Kensington and Ealing Broadway there are no fewer than 4 separate branches. Now, through my previous efforts on the District Line I’d already sketched all the stations on the main branch from Ealing Common to South Kensington. So, my thoughts were that I could start at Ealing Broadway, quickly polish off Kew Gardens and Richmond, then the Wimbledon branch with its 8 stations, then walk to Olympia from Earl’s Court, and then to High Street Kensington, to get back on the train to do all stations to Edgware Road. All in all 17 stations would still be less than I’d taken in between Acton Town and Kings Cross on the Piccadilly. This would then leave me just the 30 stations from Sloane Square to Upminster, which I felt it was reasonable to expect to do in two trips. 

I’ve never felt that Ealing Broadway was a very inspiring station. When I was a kid it was entered through part of a concrete block of shops built either in the 60s or early 70s, slightly better than a hole in the ground, but not a lot. However several years ago plans were unveiled to rebuild the ticket hall as part of the Crossrail project. And let’s be fair, you wouldn’t expect the artist’s impression to make the thing look bad anyway, but all the indications are that when it’s finished it will be a considerable improvement on what was there before. However, on my visit there was not a lot to see at all. Here’s a piece of trivia about Ealing Broadway. The District Line platforms have very rare surviving examples of the original underground roundel, which has the blue band on a filled in red circle, rather than the outer band of red and inner band of white that we know and love.  

Next stop for me was Turnham Green, having already sketched all stations between on my Piccadilly Line trips. You may well be thinking – hang on, I thought you sketched Turnham Green as well. Ah yes, so I did, but Turnham Green is the closest station to Ealing Broadway from which I could catch a train on the Richmond branch. Now, I’d already sketched the first stop, Gunnersbury, and so I didn’t alight until we reached Kew Gardens. The station came as a pleasant surprise to me, looking rather like a mid Victorian national railway station. With a little research I found out that this is exactly what it is, having been originally opened by the London and South Western Railway.  

I remembered Richmond station, the end of the line, from Saturday mornings of years gone by. On Saturday mornings my brother and I, and a couple of his mates, would often take the 65 bus from Ealing Broadway to Richmond to go skating in the old ice

rink, and the bus passed the station. Of course, I didn’t notice much about the architecture back in those days. When I say that it is built in Portland stone in an art deco style, you may well be picturing in your mind the work of Charles Holden, yet this is something quite different. This station was designed by James Robb Scott, who was the chief architect of the Southern Railway, who ran the national rail services through the station at the time at which it was built. I like it. It’s an interesting interchange as well since the station also serves the London Overground, and National Rail as well.

Now, I could have taken the train back up the line all the way to Earl’s Court, where I could switch to the Wimbledon Branch. However I really wanted to avoid retracing my own steps as much as possible. So, being as we were already south of the river, I had plotted out a route involving taking the 493 bus to Wimbledon. The journey of just less than an hour wouldn’t be as quick as using the underground, but on paper there was only about 10 minutes in it, and it had the bonus of making me feel as if I was continually making progress, rather than retreating back the way I’d come.  

Like Richmond, the main entrance to Wimbledon Station was constructed by the Southern Railway, although this one is a few years earlier. Unlike Richmond, though, there’s a lot of shiny chrome and brightly coloured plastic beneath the awning, and it all gives the station a far more modern feel than you’d maybe expect from a station that is over 9 decades old. Wimbledon doesn’t connect with the London Overground, but it does connect with National Rail, it will be on Crossrail, and even better, it has a tramstop! I had seriously considered not doing the Edgware Road line on this trip, so that I could ride the tram – I’m sorry but I absolutely love trams as well as metros – and take in a couple of relatively nearby Northern Line stations. But no, a challenge had been set. It may have been a pointless challenge, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to take it seriously. Ish.  

The next stop, Wimbledon Park, came as a bit of a surprise. I’m not entirely sure what I expected, but it wasn’t what I found as I emerged from the station. It’s rather an odd looking place. It’s somehow too small to be impressive as a station, yet it’s too big to be a Victorian House, which it rather resembles, albeit that the roof is rather too steeply pointed. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if this one has been here since the line opened in 1889. All in all it’s somehow not quite as pretty as it maybe should be. The two chimney pillars on either side are unnecessarily blocky, and the newsagents which occupies most of the building’s frontage doesn’t do it many favours in my opinion. Nonetheless, variety is the spice of life, and this station is certainly different from most of what we’ve seen before.

I guess this is why Southfields station looked familiar, being another survivor from the opening of the line in 1889. In many ways it looks quite similar to Wimbledon Park – same too steep roof, same ugly chimney pillars. However, as you probably already know, Southfields is the closest station to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club – Wimbledon, and so it was quite extensively upgraded for the 2012 Olympics, where Andy Murray would win gold in the men’s singles and silver in the mixed doubles. No prizes for guessing which two weeks every year see the station at its busiest.

Like the two preceding stations, East Putney looks as if it may well be the original station building from the late 19^th century. Yet there’s quite a different design ethic going on with this station. There’s no pointed roof for one thing, instead a pleasing shallow pointed gable in the centre of the facade. The large hemisphere windows above the widows either side of the doorway, and above the doorway itself are a little reminiscent of Earls Court and Baron’s Court, and all in all this is just a very pleasant little station. And that’s us done south of the river with the District Line. 6 stations in all . Mind you, there’s less than 30 stations south of the river as it is, and that’s counting the DLR too. Stlll, while we’re talking about the river, the District Line is the only one to cross it on bridges.

Speaking of bridges, the next station is actually Putney Bridge. It’s another venerable building, as seems very much to be the case on this particular branch of the District. The station originally opened in 1880, and is literally just around the corner from the bridge from which it takes its name. This is a rather impressive building, especially when compared with the self-contained cosiness of East Putney, with which it shares a shallow gable above the entrance, and not much else. On a point of pedantry, the name of the station is a little misleading since it isn’t in Putney as such, being on the north side of the river and therefore in Fulham.  

Like Cockfosters on the Piccadilly, Parsons Green is one of those places that I have only ever heard of from the tube map. I don’t recall anybody either telling me that they came from Parsons Green, or that they had to go to Parsons’ Green. Still, in its favour the station building is the original, built by Mr. Clemence (Ray? Surely not?) under the supervision of John Wolfe Barry. Wolfe-Barry’s most impressive contribution to London is probably Tower Bridge. You can see it was built in the same era as the previous two stations, although this is a rather more modest affair, interestingly tacked onto the side of a viaduct.

So, just when I was really starting to expect all of the stations on the Wimbledon branch of the District Line to be Victorian relics, I arrived at Fulham Broadway. You may remember how the Hammersmith station serving the Piccadilly and District Lines is entered through a 90s shopping mall? Well, in the noughties the old station building was closed, and entry has to be made through the Fulham Broadway Shopping Centre. Like most people of a certain age, my main memory of the station prior to visiting it on this trip was from Ian Dury and the Blockheads’ single ‘What A Waste’ where the lyric goes – “I could be the ticket man at Fulham Broadway Station.” To be fair, all I saw when I visited were automated barriers, but there you go.

So to the last stop on the branch – or the first if you’re coming from the other direction – West Brompton, and after the shock of the new at Fulham Broadway we’re back to the Victorian ethic of East Putney and Putney Bridge. I’m quite glad about this, since I’d made up my mind to do a second walked section. I’d worked out that I could pretty much follow the rail route to Olympia via Earl’s Court on foot, and then get back on the train at High Street Kensington. This would mean that I could avoid the hassle of changing trains, and hanging around at Olympia. By my reckoning I could get to High Street Kensington if I got a bit of a wiggle on. Then that would just leave the 4 other stations ending in Edgware Road, and my marathon day mopping up the western branches of the line would be complete, without me having to double back along any of the lines. 

Olympia is only open at weekends, and for special exhibitions. Frankly, it isn’t much to write home about. I get the feeling that it’s far more important as a national rail station than as a tube station, and as a result the buildings are 1980s-era British Rail crap. They’re the sort of thing you buy at the end of a shopping expedition when you’re patience has been exhausted, and you’ll buy any old rubbish just to bring the ordeal to an end. I had a university friend who lived in a flat just around the corner, which come to think of it was a hell of a commute for her considering that we were attending Goldsmith’s College in New Cross, still, it was memories of this time in my life which reminded me that it wasn’t all that far to High Street Kensington.

I had a feeling, a half memory, that the station at High Street Kensington was similar to the Piccadilly Line station at Knightsbridge. I suppose that it is in as much as it’s built into a parade of very large shop buildings. But at least there’s a sense of style about it. The large hemispherical window , ad Portland stone pilasters either side of the entrance at least give it some atmosphere, and mark it out that this is something quite different from the commercial premises on either side. The Kensington Arcade, which contains the actual entrance to the station, has a real elegance and airiness about it as well, so coming after the disappointing station at Olympia this was something of a pleasant surprise.

Well, there I was, over 70 stations into the challenge, and Notting Hill Gate provided only the 3^rd hole in the ground so far, after Hyde Park Corner and Piccadilly Circus. The current, subsurface station opened in 1959. The rebuilding during the 50s, which saw street level station buildings removed, making way for a subsurface ticket hall which could be jointly used by both District and Circle lines, and also the Central line. The Central and District Lines do diverge at this point, but not by much. Next stop on the Central line is Queensway, and it is actually a very short walk from Queensway on the central line to Bayswater on the District. I know that because I often used to go ice skating in Queens, and you can clearly see one station from the other. As a matter of fact I met the future Mrs. Clark therein 1985, but that’s another story.

Bayswater itself is a rather attractive station, quite possibly the original building, although it’s one of those which probably isn’t best served by the blue canopy proclaiming the name of the station over the entrance. What with the ornamented balustrade, this looks similar in style to the District Railway style of Barons Court, and that's enough to make it a very pleasant surprise.

Nearing the end of the marathon trip, it wasn’t until I exited from Paddington’s impressive former Metropolitan Railway façade on Praed Street, I realised that Paddington is, in fact, 2 Underground stations – or rather there are two underground stations called Paddington, and what’s more the same can be said of Edgware Road, just along the line. I suppose that I can be forgiven for forgetting about this by the fact that the tube map does show them as a separate station, which they are not. The two stations form a fascinating contrast. The District Line uses the Praed Street Station, which proclaims its Metropolitan Railway origin proudly, and may date back as far as 1868. However the Hammersmith and City Line station, which originally opened in 1863 as the Western Terminus of the Metropolitan Railway has a very modern entranceway, which looks to be in a very similar style to the stations on the Jubilee line extension. We’ll get to them when we eventually mop up the Jubilee. At one time the two stations were distinguished by having Praed Street and Bishops Road appended to their names, but not now. 

I can, sort of, understand there being two underground stations at Paddington, what with the importance of the main line railway terminus. But Edgware Road? It beggars belief that there are the two separate stations only 150 yards or so apart , and separated by the Marylebone Road. The District, Circle and Hammersmith and City station was there first, being part of the original Metropolitan Railway 1863 line. Confusingly though, it looks more modern. The station was extensively remodelled in the 1920s, and it’s difficult to know just by looking at it how much of the Victorian original remains. I’d guess that

the frieze which declares that it is the Metropolitan Railway may well be original, but I can’t be certain. The Bakerloo Line station, though, is much easier to date, bearing the familiar Leslie Green hallmarks of ox blood tiles, and hemi-spherical windows. Apparently there have been moves and attempts to rename one of the two stations to end the confusion between the two.




In terms of stations visited, this trip saw me visiting fewer than I’d visited between Chiswick Park and Kings Cross. However it felt like more, and was a more exhausting trip. Maybe it was because the trip saw me visiting 5 ends of the District Line, and in my experience you can often end up waiting longer for your train to depart when you’re at the end of the line. Maybe it was crossing the river twice. Whatever the case, this was the first real time on the challenge when I felt I could honestly say that I didn’t want to think about another tube station for a while. Which was a bit of a pain considering the journey back which lay ahead of me.