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

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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.

Piccadilly Line - Section 4 : Caledonian Road to Cockfosters

I entered on this final Piccadilly Line trip with a sense of mounting excitement. I knew that some of the finest stations on the Piccadilly Line lay ahead – and therefore some of the finest on the whole network. Also, I’d seen the name Cockfosters as a destination so many times as a kid, yet had never been there. What was it like? I would find out by the end of the day. 

I’d already decided what my walked section was going to be. After my mother married my stepfather in 1996, they lived in Tottenham for 15 years, and because of many visits I knew the overground way between Turnpike Lane and Bounds Green via Wood Green station pretty well.  

Next stop on from King’s Cross, then, is Caledonian Road. I was tempted to walk this section so that I could check out the disused Leslie Green York Road station. It closed the same day that the Piccadilly Line extension to Finsbury Park opened in 1932.The buildings survived, I guess, because they were used as commercial premises for some time, and survived World War II. At the moment the station stands as an emergency exit from the tunnels. As I say, I was tempted to walk between Kings Cross ad Caledonian Road to take in York Road, but the fact is that I know this section of the Piccadilly Lie less well than the others, and although I only had 12 stations to visit, I had no idea how long this section was going to take me, and so I erred on the side of caution. Caledonian Road is a larger Leslie Green station, rather reminiscent of the station at Russell Square.  

The next station, Holloway Road, is also a larger Leslie Green station – this one has 6 semi circular windows on the façade as opposed to Caledonian Road’s 5. When you look at these stations you can see that they are pretty substantial buildings in their own way, and so you can understand how people think that overwork contributed to Leslie Green’s tragic early death from TB. Holloway Road station’s claim to fame is that it once housed a spiral escalator. A spiral escalator which didn’t work, and was apparently never opened to the public. The opening of this station put paid pretty much to the Great Northern Railway’s Caledonian Road and Holloway station which was originally opened in the 1850s, but closed within a few years of the current station opening.  

I’ve been a Spurs supporter since the 70s, and I do know fellow Spurs supporters who call the next station Gillespie Road. To be fair this is the name which is still spelled out on the wall tiles on the Piccadilly Line platforms. It was only called Gillespie Road from opening in 1906 for the next 26 years, after which it was named Arsenal (Highbury). I could write a lot about the enmity between the two North London clubs, but you’ll be pleased to know that I won’t. But let’s pay tribute to Arsenal’s legendary manager from the 30s, Herbert Chapman, whose lobbying probably tipped the scales for the renaming of the station. The name remains, even if Arsenal didn’t, their current home, the Emirates Stadium, being closer to Holloway Road. The original Leslie Green building went the way of all flesh in the 30s, and the current building was built. It’s definitely a modernist style, but if it was designed by Holden, I guess it may have been a Friday afternoon design. It’s blocky and uninspiring, and would really have benefitted from one of his trademark glass screens.  

Finsbury Park is the last station on this northwards section of the Piccadilly Line to connect with any other line, in this case the Victoria Line, and national rail services, and to be fair it was originally opened in the 1860s on the Great Northern Railway line into their Kings Cross terminus. Originally, Finsbury Park was the northeast terminus of the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway. The Western Entrance, shown in the sketch, is actually the newest thing on any Piccadilly Line station at the time of writing, since it only opened in December 2019.

The Piccadilly Line boasts three stations with the word ‘Manor’ in their name. Boston and Ruislip are on the two western arms and we visited them The third and final on the Piccadilly is Manor House. Now, I’ve tried to be positive about the vast majority of the buildings I’ve sketched along the way, but, I have to say that calling this station Manor House is just writing a cheque which the building itself can in no way, shape or form cash. If Arsenal looks like it was designed on a Friday night, then this one looks like it was designed when he got up hungover on a Sunday morning and just couldn’t be arsed. Sorry. At least it’s brick faced, and has some windows, but, to be honest, it looks like he’s forgotten the rectangular ticket hall which transforms so many of the stations on this line. Time to move on.  

Thankfully, Holden returned to form with the run of stations from here to the end of the line. We start with the next station, Turnpike Lane. Now, here’s a funny thing. Driving to my Mum’s old house in Tottenham from the west, the best way was always to go along the North Circular, and then turn off for Wood Green. In the process you’d pass Bounds Green, then Wood Green, and if you carried on rather than turning up Lordship Lane, then you’d come to Turnpike Lane. Which is actually the opposite order from that in which the train passes through them. Go figure. In some ways this is almost a Holden Greatest hits compilation. Tower? Check. Rectangular booking hall with glazed sections? Check. Long low wide entrance? Check? Semi Circular ends? Of course.

A short walk slightly uphill to Wood Green took me past what I know as the Shopping City complex, but which now calls itself the Mall Wood Green. Call it what you like, its 70s architecture is uninspiring, but at least it was built after the UK’s civic architects rediscovered brick. Had it have been built a few years earlier no doubt it would have presented a dirty grey concrete face to the world.  

I mentioned the junction with Lordship Lane a little earlier, and once I’d crossed that busy intersection I had arrived at Wood Green station. We can be thankful for small mercies here, since if the station had been sited just the other side of the Lordship Lane junction, then it’s not impossible it would have been rebuilt as part of the shopping city complex. As it is, though, we still get to enjoy Charles Holden’s curved frontage, with its ventilation towers. Apparently the towers were later additions, according to my research.

 Bounds Green stations is one I had only ever undertaken on a train, or in a car. Underground, the road gradient makes no difference, and it doesn’t make much more in a car. On foot, though. . . well we’re not exactly talking Hovis advert gradient, but the uphill drag went on and on, and I have to say that I’d had quite enough of the Bounds Green Road by the time I reached the station of the same name. The station houses a plaque which stands as a memorial to people who were killed when the station tunnel, in which they were sheltering, collapsed during a bombing raid during world war II. Up until this trip I’d never been past Wood Green on the Piccadilly Line so far, so I have to say that I was particularly looking forward to getting back on a train at this point. I have to say that I have a real soft spot for this station. It’s beautifully proportioned, and pleasing to the eye, yet it rarely receives the plaudits so often bestowed upon our next station.

Between the wars, Charles Holden and Frank Pick made a trip to Europe to check out modernist ideas in architecture in a number of countries. The story goes that Holden’s design for Arnos Grove station was inspired by Stockholm’s Public Library. Well, I was in Stockholm in February 2019 and I did see Gunnar Asplund’s famous building, but I have to say that it doesn’t strike me as being much more than a general resemblance, that is, a circular central hall on top of a rectangular building. The station is, of course, much smaller in size and scale, but in my chauvinistic Londoner’s opinion, rather more graceful and appealing. We hadn’t seen a circular ticket hall since Chiswick Park in the previous marathon section. This station was the original terminus of the Piccadilly Line extension, and as a terminus it does have more of a sense of occasion than Cockfosters, which replaced it as the terminus a ear or so later. People often hold up the stations on this section of the Piccadilly Line as examples of the genius of Charles Holden, and when you see stations like Bounds Green, this one and Southgate in succession, you can understand why.

So I’ve already bigged up Southgate station, and that is with the benefit of hindsight. I would imagine that my first reaction to the station when I walked out of it was pretty similar to most people’s, that is that it looks as if a flying saucer from a 1950s B movie has landed in suburban North London. I absolutely love this station. I can only imagine what the reaction of people was when it first opened in 1933. It must have been like walking onto the set of Metropolis, or the Flash Gordon movie serials. I make the connection to movies of the time deliberately, since I’m convinced that movies I part influenced Holden in his design. The story goes that the structure on the roof was inspired by the tesla coils which help bring the monster to life in the 1931 movie “Frankenstein”. This station is about as far as you can get from Holden’s own appraisal of his stations as ‘brick boxes with concrete lids’.  

I didn’t previously know that the line emerges overground before Oakwood, so at least I’ve learned something on the trip. On emerging from the building my first thought was that I’d somehow gone through a wormhole back to Acton Town, since, superficially at least, the stations seemed very similar. A quick walk around showed me a rather fetching station sign combined with a seat which I’m guessing were original art deco features of the station.  

That was it, the penultimate station of the Piccadilly Line, which only left the enigmatic Cockfosters to go. I say enigmatic for a couple of reasons. Firstly, in all the time I lived in London, I don’t recall anybody ever announcing that they had to go to Cockfosters, or ever mentioning it in conversation. I had absolutely no idea what Cockfosters was actually like as a place, nor why the Piccadilly Line should choose to end there. As for what the station actually meant. .  . Well, that I’ve since discovered is simple – it’s on Cockfosters Road. Foster is a shortened version of the word forester, and the cock forester was the head or chief forester. Quite prosaic when you know, isn’t it? The station itself is another of those unassuming Holden jobs, although the small towers at either end, and the original glass screens do provide just enough to divert the eye and give it a pleasing if unspectacular appearance.  

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That was it. I had half a mind to go for a walk around the local area to try to get a feel, but to be honest I was just too tired. What can I say – it looked like the outskirts of London, which is exactly what it was. During the long ride back to Boston Manor I tried to assemble my thoughts, now that I’d visited every station on the line, and sketched all bar the 12 on this trip, to draw some sort of conclusion about the Piccadilly as a whole. You can certainly draw comparisons between the three ends of the line, since two of them were entirely built in the 1930s, and all bar Hatton Cross and the Heathrow stations on the other was bult at the same time. Yet even on these sections there are not only newer rebuilt stations as you might expect, but there are also older remnants, like Hounslow central, Ruislip and North Ealing. This hodgepodge is even more noticeable in the Central London sections where the Harry Fords mingle with Leslie Greens, a couple of token Holdens, and some holes in the ground. I did wonder whether this was how it was going to be for the remaining lines. 

Speaking of which, I had to think about which line I should do next. The Piccadilly has the second highest number of stations, after the District Line. That was a strong argument for doing the District next, as was the fact that I’d already sketched quite a number of the more westerly District Line stations. Also, the westernmost terminus of the line was none other than my ‘third’ home station, Ealing Broadway. District Line it was, then.