Tube Facts L To S
Ladbroke Grove
London. I like it. Purists will argue that this isn’t really the London, but rather North Kensington, which is technically true. But you could fairly say the same thing about any of the areas surrounding London, from Hammersmith to Wimbledon and everywhere in between. The sheer size of London means that it really has several different city centres across its 32 boroughs (yes 32). Kensington is one of them, and Ladbroke Grove is just a few minutes walk away from Notting Hill Gate Station (previously Ladbroke Grove station).
There are a few possible origins for the name Ladbroke Grove, My City of London (mycityoflondon.co.uk). One being that it was named after a local landowner, Mr. William Ladbroke, who also owned land in Midway and Westbourne Grove. Another is that it was named after the fact that it was once the route that the Earl of Devonshire's gamekeepers took while going towards Ladbroke and Bagshot Heaths to set up hunting parties. Ladbroke Grove, so called because of the family who lived in the 1500s (whose name was Ladbroke) that owned much of what is now Notting Hill (and unfortunately South Kensington).
Lambeth North
This road is named after it's position north of Lambeth (which was, in the early C18, based around a district hospital) and had, since the late C17, been called Westminster Bridge Road. The road originally ran from Westminster to the River Thames (near Vauxhall) but was extended in the 1830s to Kennington. As such it became part of the road (Great Dover Street) that once ran to the Dover Castle which is now the site of Crystal Palace following its demolition in 1859.
When I tell people I live in Lambeth North, and usually in some kind of follow-up about the name, they think it's perhaps part of a separate borough. To be fair Lambeth North isn't really part of any borough really. It's a largely abstract island floating in the middle of the Thames, made up of somewhat tangled borders that cover Kennington Road along with Westminster Bridge Road and Vauxhall Bridge Road. In the 1830s, Lambeth North was a pretty developed area with shops, pubs and a gas light.
In the 1830s it was still sometimes called Kennington Road but by the 1840s it had been named Westminster Bridge Road. In 1855 it took its name from a pub called The Lamb Inn, which became known as The Lambeth North. So you have an event or meeting in the SE1 area. Huge congratulations on your decision to look where most people don’t, Lambeth North is perfect for meetings and events. There are some great restaurants and a hotel for those who are looking for something to do after.
Lancaster Gate
Fischer's map of London c. 1805 shows a building labelled 'Lancaster Gate'adjacent to Hyde Park's Serpentine Road, behind the Metropolitan Asylum (a psychiatric hospital). Lancaster Gate was named after the marriage of Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz to Prince Frederick William of Prussia in 1761. Before her accession to the throne, Princess Charlotte, known as ""The Princess Royal,"" lived at Clarence House nearby. The area west of Lancaster Gate was then called Marylebone Park Field.
The gate or gatehouse was built prior to 1813; in 1833 a number of mature elms on the south side were cut down for their timber. In June 2015, City of Westminster council approved plans to redevelop the station. The new plans are for a single-storey structure on the current station site, with entrances on Bayswater Road and Lancaster Road. The buildings would be constructed from glass and steel with a large canopy, giving an impression of lightness that contrasts with the heavy massing of the current building.
The new building would be lower than those opposite, returning views across Hyde Park tos the tops of tall trees in Kensington Gardens, and allowing passers-by to see into the station concourse. The station is served by the Central line, between Marble Arch and Central London via Holborn. The station is also served on the Bakerloo line between Edgware Road and Queen's Park (these two service runs run in parallel between Marble Arch and Willesden Junction).
On the Central Line it is between Shepherd's Bush Market and Notting Hill Gate and on the Bakerloo Line it is between Edgware Road and Queen's Park[Footnote 1]. This station, like all the others on the West London Main Line, was opened by the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) on 1 October 1869. The LSWR had been promoted by a group of local businessmen in 1848 as a line from Richmond to Read more.
The "Gate" suffix comes from stiles or gates in the perimeter wall of Hyde Park and forms part of a local parkland trail also including Hyde Park Corner and Marble Arch. The station has nothing to do with Lancaster Gate tube station in north-west London. Both stations are named after the nearby Hyde Park gates, not Lancaster Gate. Lambeth, North London. Has been called Kennington Road, Westminster Bridge Road, and finally Lambeth North. Portobello Road and Ladbroke Grove are in South Kensington.
Latimer Road
My family was looking to buy a house in Melbourne and were very interested in a duplex on Latimer Road, Fitzroy. Before we could put in an offer though, we needed to work out how to get across the railway line to get to it. You may know this road too – it’s quite famous for being so steep that cars can’t drive up it. But if you walk up it or ride your bike up it, you’ll quickly realise that the actual street is actually located half a kilometer away from Latimer Road.
Which MTR station does Latimer Road in Kowloon fall under? If you haven’t been to Hong Kong, you might not know and you might have guessed the opposite. It turns out that No. 5 and No. 6 on the MTR map are the closest stations (just look at ). Most of the 6 stops between these two stations and Latimer Road are named after a certain another street nearby; for instance, No. 6 (Prince Edward) station is actually located half a kilometer away from Prince Edward Road.
Did you know that Latimer Road was renamed Beatty Road in 1969? Its name was changed because it sounded too English. The street off Racecourse Road near the Singapore Turf Club used to be known as “Armageddon Road” or “Armagideon Trail” for a short while before that. Perhaps you are thinking, “Why does it matter that the name of this road is incorrect?” It’s a good question. You are right, maybe it doesn’t matter. However, when you search for Latimer Road on google maps, you actually end up at Watts Road, not Latimer Road.
An astonishingly short distance from Oxford’s University Parks, Latimer Road is the address of the fictional home of the Banks family in John Betjeman’s poem, ‘Maiden Name’. The area is popular for tourists, with its antiques shops, street shops, restaurants, and department stores. 4m). The shortest lift shaft on the network is found at Kings Cross St. Pancras. The lift shaft in question is just 2. 3 metres. High Barnet is a residential area which almost borders on London.
Leicester Square
Stepping onto the platforms of Leicester Square Station, you can’t help but notice the long paper sprockets hanging down from the ceiling. These give you an idea of where to wait for your next train in case you missed the electronic display boards above you. Unfortunately, there is no excuse for not paying attention to which direction your train is heading if you’re standing in front of the blue sprockets–only the Piccadilly line platforms have these blue sprockets.
Usually, this is fairly obvious (and on all four platforms, film sprockets are painted down the entire length and on the top and bottom of the display area (blue on the Piccadilly line platforms, and black on the Northern. There are four platforms at the station; two go westbound and two eastbound. The westbound (Piccadilly line) northbound platform is very widely known as Trafalgar Square rather than Leicester Square, despite its actual name. It is south of Charing Cross and was one of the original stations on the Strand Railway from Cannon Street to Charing Cross, which opened on 15 December 1906.
The station lies close to Charing Cross station, with which it was once linked via a short street-level branch line (now removed). Eastbound (Northern line) northbound trains use the westernmost pair of platforms (numbered 1/2), southbound trains use platforms 3/4. It’s all about the movies at Leicester Square station. In addition to its four premiere cinemas (the Odeon, Empire, Princes, and Vue), the square is home to a few other landmarks: the Dominion Theatre (home of The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, and Legally Blonde) and Troxy (home of pantomimes in January and February).
It’s also not without its fair share of controversy – consider the long-running dispute over plans to demolish the buildings on one side of Leicester Square itself (and rename it ‘Leicester Walk’ for better marketing potential. Hmm. ). The Victoria line platforms also have unique station-specific sprocket designs, at least on the Charing Cross branch. Towards the end of one Charing Cross branch platform, there is a reproduction of two defaced posters, which were originally used to promote the Star Wars Trilogy films.
Leyton
After its creation as a railway by the Epping & Ongar Railway in 1865, a lack of funds prevented the planned extension to Woodford and the line only reached Leyton via a branch from Loughton. There were originally four stations: Leyton (now closed), Leyton Midland Road Halt, Low Leyton Halt, and Leytonstone. The latter two are now closed. The former Midland Road station was renamed Leytonstone in 1926 to avoid confusion with the Midland Railway's Leyton station (now reorganised as part of the present day Lea Bridge Underground station).
I'm out for the night. Heading for a club in East London, Leyton has come up in conversation. Exploring the area and was surprised at how quiet and tranquil it was compared to my home turf of Central London. That is, until I stepped into what I thought was a cemetery. The first thing that caught my attention was some abstract art piece sitting atop one of the graves at the entrance then the sign above: Leyton Cemetery.
As I walked further in, all around me were gravestones, monuments to some of those who died. Leyton is full of contrasts. Immigrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh have settled here, with their culture still dominant in the streets, but the area is also famous for one of the country’s first Romany camps, an enclave that reached its peak in the 1950s. The Underground has been running in London for more than 120 years, but there have been plenty of accidents and strange happenings over the years.
Leytonstone
The aptly named Odeon Cinema was known as ‘The Leicester Square of the North’. It has been visited by Hollywood stars including David Niven, Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant and Douglas Fairbanks. The main foyer hosts 17 mosaics of Alfred Hitchcock moments, featuring shots of his many famous film characters. These include visual memories from classic films like The Lodger, The 39 Steps and Frenzy. I love a bit of old fashioned British eccentricity. I mean, look at The British Baking Show — it’s probably my favorite TV program and one that is better described as a “programme” versus “show”.
It’s the same way with this crazy installation in Leytonstone, London which features 17 mosaics of different Alfred Hitchcock movies and famous scenes. Who knew mosaics could be so interesting?. The Leytonstone Hitchcock mosaic was created in 2005 on the wall of a shop, above a bank in Eastern Road, in Leytonstone, London E11 by mosaic artist Bob & Roberta Smith. It is advertised as "London's Largest Mosaic" and consists of over 4,500 pieces. It is prominently visible to traffic traveling eastwards on the busy main road.
A hidden gem in East London, Leytonstone is making waves in the art world with its collection of mosaics immortalising the filmography of Alfred Hitchcock. If you think this is a random array of the scenes from his movies, wait until you see them up close and personal. It’s an unusual location for a sculpture garden, but that didn’t stop the people of Leytonstone, East London, from creating its very own open air gallery, featuring 17 mosaics made from 35,000 coloured tiles.
The walk: from Leytonstone station on the Central line to Leytonstone & Green Road station on the Central line. This list looks at ten moments that shook the city. However, despite severe overcrowding during peak hours at Leyton Underground station, it is a useful transport link between East London and the Olympic Park in Stratford. The posters were defaced by members of staff who worked at the station in 1987 and from that point onwards these images were replicated on the trains entering and leaving this particular platform.
London Bridge
Somehow I don't think I should be the one writing this piece. You see while I am from one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, a city which never sleeps London, apparently I can not write about it. It's almost as if to do so would be to let the cat out of the bag, and for that sole reason, there is only one writer qualified well enough to complete such a task.
So here we are, a way away in Prague, looking across that continent that is both connected and separated by an ocean, and wondering how this topic came into fruition. London Bridge tube station, which first opened in 1890 is located on the River Thames under the southern span of the Tower Bridge. Whilst not the only station in London named after a bridge (one of the two stations on the Thameslink route serving Bedford and St Pancras International is named after its railway bridge) it is singled out due to its location and history.
London Bridge is the oldest railway station in London and without doubt one of the most iconic stations on the London Underground. Its development over the years has been at the forefront of transport development not just in London, but also across Britain, and indeed the world…. On Monday, July xxth, 1826, The Times newspaper reported that the first stone of the bridge had been laid. There was a lot of excitement in London at that time due to the fact that it would be the first real bridge over the Thames and not just another ferry crossing.
Loughton
The information age has come to the train station of Loughton. This little village in Essex is world famous for being the home to Waltham Abbey, Britain’s oldest inhabited house. These days it also accommodates people from all over the globe visiting London and the rest of Britain. The station was originally built so that City workers would have easy access to Epping Forest to sell their wares. Shortly after the East London Line was opened in 2010, a new destination appeared on the electronic boards of TfL’s tube map.
Loughton ceased to be a remote village and commune of Epping Forest and became a place to visit instead. The station is on the National Rail line and has also become famous because it serves as the fictional Walford East Station in BBC’s popular soap EastEnders. Loughton is the most important town to me as I’ve spent most my life living here. Loughton was first created by William of Durham. He owned land around the Loughton area and built a manor on top of the boring hill.
Loughton was then full of market squares, boarding schools, many churches, and shop corners. A former station has been returned to life as a bar. The bar is named after Loughton, which is a great place to spend the day with friends (or by yourself with a nice book, there are plenty of parks which I will speak of more later). Epping is a town in Essex, England. It is part of the London commuter belt and, as of 2011, had a population of 55,000.
Maida Vale
Maida Vale is a station on London Underground's Bakerloo line and on the London Overground's North London Line. It is located between Kilburn and St Johns Wood stations and is in Travelcard Zone 2. The station has a ticket hall and escalators down to platforms level, but the platforms are not accessible by wheelchair or mobility-impaired users. Maida Vale : Mill Hill Broadway British Rail station in north London on the Chiltern Main Line. It opened in 1939 to cater for rising traffic, primarily from Buckinghamshire, on a line served by only two other stations, namely Edgware and Hendon Central.
It was formerly called Maida Vale and Welsh Harp, but it was renamed after the road of that name (the suffix Vale was dropped before World War II). "Welsh Harp" is a corruption of 'Welsh Head'. Welsh Head is an area of Kingsbury in northwest London. It once had a pub called the Harp but this changed its name to the Welsh Harp when it was bought by a former employee of the Grand Theatre on either the site or just off it.
Maida Vale is a railway station in Maida Vale, west London. It is served by the London Underground Bakerloo line. On the Jubilee line it is between West Hampstead and St John's Wood stations and on the Metropolitan line between Finchley Road (also served by the Jubilee line) and Wembley Park. One of the interesting things there: it was staffed by women because they couldn't find enough men to drive the trains. Loughton is the town in which I currently reside, having moved from East London just over two years ago.
Manor House
Manor House is a Grade II listed building located in Hackney and Haringey, England. The building was designed by Thomas Hopper and built as an asylum between 1801 and 1811. It was used as an asylum until 1935, and then became Manor House Hospital. In 1998 it was closed as a hospital, but has since been refurbished numerous times for a variety of uses including commercial offices, music recording studios, retail stores and restaurants. How can that be? The answer lies in the nature of Victorian London, and the nearby railroad lines.
All of these entrances are to a single building. The entire structure sits on the railway embankment between Hackney Downs and the manor house at Hackney Wick, but it is reached by flights of steps from the different streets. The Manor House in London totals out to be 17 lots of land split between Hackney, Islington and Haringey. The largest portion is situated in Haringey, where it also has the largest number of occupants. All of them are rented apartments, with 44 different apartments included in the total.
Manor House is a road in the London Borough of Hackney on which there are three main entrances in different boroughs. The one on the N1 corner is in Hackney: the one at the N16 entrance is in Islington; and the other two are in Haringey. There are no other houses like Manor House. It occupies a unique position. It is, or was intended to be, in two different boroughs. It is divided into nine parts which are either in Hackney or in Haringey.
Mansion House
Officially the "Mansion House", though often referred to as "Number Ten". Located at 10 Downing Street in the City of Westminster, London and is currently the official residence of the First Lord of The Treasury, and thus also the prime minister. Mansion House is the second in a series of unusual homes owned by the City of Toronto. This series spotlights some of Toronto’s most interesting properties; places that are loved, hated, and often found at the centre of contentious local debates.
When I first saw the address for this great house in London, I thought it was a lucky coincidence. But it turns out there's a reason the street is called Mansion House all of these houses are mansions. Mansion House has been my go-to stock for a while. It actually started as a joke when I bought it because if you pronounce it with an English accent, it sounds like "Man's Own House". All I'm gonna say is, if you want a house that's worth millions and millions of pounds, you just need to make sure it has all five vowels in its name.
Mansion House, London is a street in London. It contains all five vowels in its name. The history of Manor House is complex, and the name records several earlier buildings on the same site as well as other uses of the land, including the oldest public house in London. It’s the most used station outside of Central London on the Underground network. The closest station to it is Tooley Street, which is only a 5 minute walk up the road.
Marble Arch
When 1850s architect Sir John Nash planned out the building of Buckingham Palace, he originally intended to construct a bridge with a large arch over what was then known as Tyburn Road (later Oxford Street). This would have been the first and grandest way into the grounds of Buckingham Palace. Built in 1827, the arch was designed by Decimus Burton for the Prince Regent (later George IV) as an entrance to his newly acquired Buckingham House on the other side of Oxford Street.
With its four columns and tympanum displaying sculpted heads of female figures, the design is representative of Burton's taste for classical architecture. The Marble Arch that is situated at the end of Oxford Street was originally intended to be moved down to Hyde Park as the entrance to Buckingham Palace. The gate was designed and constructed in 1828 and, once it was completed, it stood as the largest single-piece stone arch in the world. Sir Robert Smirke was commissioned to design the arch while he worked under John Nash an architect who was responsible for designing Regent Street and would go on to design Buckingham Palace.
My husband grew up just off Marble Arch in St. Mark’s Terrace. We were standing there the other day having a look at it, and I was taken by how incongruous it is with everything else around it. It sits right at the heart of Buckingham Gate, which is one of the most fashionable parts of London, with Hyde Park on one side and Harrods on the other. Located at the end of Oxford Street, Marble Arch was designed by John Nash with the intention of it becoming a grand entrance into Buckingham Palace.
Thanks to Londoners petitioning Queen Victoria, this never came to fruition and the arch instead became known as an entrance point for London. The original plan for Marble Arch was to have it built as the entrance to Buckingham Palace — in fact, what is now the gate to Hyde Park from Park Lane and across from Speakers Corner, was intended to be John Nash’s grand central gateway with the arch designed by Robert Smirke.
Marylebone
Marylebone is known for it's incredible architecture and it's truly unique ambiance. But did you know that the area almost wasn't built due to concerns about the bats and their mating season? I'm not kidding. Marylebone was slow to be developed because of fears of disturbing little brown bats who were keen on having their babies there. It took an Act of Parliament to win permission to build, but today, Marylebone is one of London's most desirable places to live.
Marylebone. A central London neighbourhood that was once home to slums and is now famous for its poshness, great museums, brilliant restaurants and the hotel of choice for Prime Ministers. It’s also one of the smallest British districts by area and was nearly named after an obscure Earl who lived nearby in the 18th century. And it may have never been built. You’ve heard of it, maybe even lived there. At the time of its construction, it was considered almost an overkill.
But in the grand scheme of things, Marylebone station is one of the most important railway stations in London’s history. No other railway station has been through so much turmoil and yet still exists to say a tale. Not the prettiest part of London, but has a certain charm to it and some great architecture. One key point in this area is that Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson actually lived at Baker Street just down the road from us.
Apart from that it is just residential houses :). It is amazing how small decisions made by some important people at the time can shape the history and nature of a place. If Marylebone had not been constructed things would look much different indeed. A lot of us just see the station which connects Buckingham Palace to the north of London, but did you know that the original design was going to be an entrance to Buckingham Palace?.
Mile End
Myself and the other co-founders, Anthony Gerace, James Cleaver, Jon Butterworth, and Simone Bizzozero have known each other on and off for a few years. Craig Calhoun (CTO) actually studied with two of us at University College London. We’d met up often to brainstorm on projects that we were working on. Mile End was our first attempt as a group to do something all together. If you’ve worked in or around the City of London you’ll know it’s the home to some of the world’s greatest investment banks.
Banks that are at the centre of shaping global economies and governments. Lots of money is made and spent by these companies every day. Yet despite all this power and wealth, there isn’t much going on socially in this area. When you think of the City of London, you probably think of skyscrapers, Square Mile and trendy restaurants. You might even think of Big Ben or maybe a trendy bar or pub where suits sip on craft beers.
Monument
Eastcheap Street was the original name of a street in London. In the 17th century, it was an important thoroughfare and market for food and other supplies for Londoners. Its name is derived from the Old English word ceape (which means merchandise). Many years later, it was renamed Monument Street to commemorate the Great Fire of London which began in its eastern end. Monument is a street in the City of London running from Gracechurch Street to Fish Street Hill.
\\"Monument", being a bridge, was obviously built before bridges became less architecturally impressive and more practical. It is the oldest surviving bridge over the river Thames and is approximately 374 years old (as a result of various upgrades, it dates from AD 1671-5). The name was changed due to the merging of two streets, Eastcheap and Monument Lane, in 1855. Someone had decided that maybe a monument would look good there, but was an uninspiring little column with nothing on top of it, so in 1884 a statue of Queen Elizabeth I sculpted by Francis John Williamson was placed on top.
It was known by several names, including the Monument and Eastcheap although the use of the additional river bank south of London Bridge in the 19th century led to the area being generally referred to as Borough from that time. At least one local building still bears its name. Many people mistakenly believe that Monument Inn was named after memorials dedicated to fallen soldiers of the United States Civil War, however the inn pre-dates that conflict.
Moor Park
Since we first set foot in the house, my wife and I have been fascinated by it. In part this is due to the mystique that has built up around it over the years. When we bought our first house in England, before we knew anything about Moor Park – where it was, what sort of place it was, or even that there was a Moor Park – I read a passage from Samuel Pepys’ diary on the history of his house.
I learned that Pepys made a point of not only adding extra features to his house but also of documenting his creation in meticulous detail. This led me to one conclusion: as far as I understood, this guy had no sense of humour at all. Moor Park is a piece of land off the grid with a post code in Watford, we’re not sure who owns the area – but it’s private and we assume it’s owned by a wealthy individual.
There’s a golf course adjacent to the property and anyone can play there, the general public are welcome. There are a lot of great features about the place – such as it being an “off grid” area – which is really cool. It’s got a wall around it all and it makes you wonder what the purpose of that is. Moor Park is a little gem that I discovered by chance. It's located in North London, and is not easy to get to on public transport.
If you manage to find it though, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Moor Park consists of two lakes, which hold carp, tench, pike and perch. There is no license needed for fishing in the lakes and I was able to catch a number of fish, including a limit (6 fish) of perch with corn and maggots from the bank. I'm looking for a new house with a decent sized garden, and Moor Park caught my eye.
The house itself doesn't look anything special from the street. It's not ugly, but nothing to write home about either. But the back yard is fantastic, and it's what made me take a second look. I entered Moor Park and headed for the door marked "Manager. " I played the role of a new patient and gave my name. The receptionist asked if I had any ID, such as a passport or credit card to verify my address.
I gave her footage of my house taken with my drone. Moor Park is a health spa which attracts an affluent clientele from the neighbouring London area. Moor Park is one of the oldest and most well-respected health spas in the country. Its history is nearly as long as Baden-Baden. The actual name originates from a water pump in Eastcheap, London.
Morden
Morden is the start of the longest tunnel on the Underground network, running 27. 8 kilometres (17. 3 mi) to East Finchley via the Bank branch and 28. 1 kilometres (17. 6 mi) through the Northern line to Mill Hill East. The station was named after Morden, a village approximately 200 years ago; however, it is not in the area referred to as Morden today, rather in an area known as Wormwood Scrubs.
There was a farm adjacent to the now-lost Snakes Lane which came to be known as Mordon or Marden. The two words derive from "Mere-Dún", meaning an island with a firm or solid surface, a. The Northern line's Morden branch is the longest on the Underground network. Its first section opened in 1926 from Moorgate to Highgate, and its eastern extension to Morden station was completed just before the outbreak of World War II.
The line was later extended in stages, reaching Stanmore in 1939, which is as far as it goes now. A further extension to Edgware, created by tunnelling under Hampstead Heath, was proposed but never built, and a branch extension crossing the Thames at Kingston, also never came to fruition. The tunnel is entirely in a twin bores configuration, and utilises the Greathead Shield System for excavation and tunnel lining. The tunnel was constructed using the "cut and cover" method, with the open-air section from Battersea running to near Elephant & Castle being excavated using a rivet-ended Robbins Shield in sections, while the majority of the remainder was constructed as closed-face tunnel boring machines (TBMs).
The extension was opened in 1990, with new stations at Canary Wharf, Poplar, and Stratford. This extension made Bank the only interchange between two different branches of the Underground network – the Central branch (the station is between the western terminus of the Central line, Liverpool Street and the eastern terminus of the North London line, Tottenham Hale) and the Jubilee line. Right from the very beginning, in 1863, the Underground network has been growing.
Extending further and further across London. The most recent addition to the system was in 2014 when the long awaited Northern Line Extension went into service. Despite that opening four new stations, there still remains areas of South London that remain untouched by the Underground network. Morden is today the start of the longest tube tunnel on the London Underground network. This single tunnel (without any intermediate stopping points) runs for 27. 8 kilometres (17.
Mornington Crescent
Mornington Crescent is a deliberately incomprehensible gameshow on the BBC Radio 4 in which there are no rules and the object is to "broadly speak the truth. " The show itself consists of a panel of three players who have to try and answer very simple questions without getting thrown out of the round. Each show lasts for two 15-minute long episodes. The best thing about travelling is that you get to meet really interesting people.
You sit down on the train and next to you is a couple, both studying maps, with rucksacks slung over their shoulders. And out of nowhere a conversation turns to the subject of BBC Radio 4′s game show, ‘Mornington Crescent’. Mornington Crescent is the subject of a deliberately incomprehensible gameshow on BBC Radio 4 in which there are no rules. In fact, an understanding of how Mornington Crescent works would be of a very great advantage to any player who had an understanding of how Mornington Crescent works.
I don't know why I find this so funny. I'm laughing at my own joke again. And I don't know why I've written it in the past tense either. It's not like I'm thinking about a game of Mornington Crescent taking place now or something similarly absurd. '. So it’s here then. Mornington Crescent: the once-viable, perhaps actually competitive, perhaps actually deliberately created to be impossible opponent to alternative gameshow Yorkshireman’s terms. Mornington Crescent. Is the subject of a deliberately incomprehensible gameshow on BBC Radio 4, in which there are no rules.
Neasden
As a Northern Line station it has many connections to the Underground system. A tunnel in the station leads out onto the nearby Neasden Temple industrial estate and, as it passes beneath the main A406 North Circular Road, is one of only three stations where trains pass directly under another road: the others being Chalk Farm and Tooting Bec. Today, Neasden is a place of urban regeneration: a melting pot of various cultures ranging from Bulgarian to Kurdish, which, unsurprisingly, has led to the area being dubbed as Little Bulgaria and London’s Kurdistan.
Newbury Park
The bus shelter attached to the station isn't Grade II listed. 3 mi) from Morden to East Finchley via Bank, with trains normally running non-stop between the two termini. I work in the City for a small financial technology consultancy and live on the edge of Hoxton. This centre spread is an ideal spot for my friend to grab some lunch. The Market Stall in Mile End offers something very different to most of the other stalls in London.
North Ealing
When I first started in the industry, I noticed a pattern of best practice being called "North Once you know that I guess it’s pretty hard to forget, but I’m going to make a special effort because that’s how much I love what’s happening in this little pocket of west London. There is a common misconception that North Ealing is actually north of Ealing! It's not! It's east of it. This misconception probably comes from the fact that there is actually also another Ealing (North Ealing), which isn't near London at all and might as well be in Europe (it's in Wales). North Ealing is a great place for families and people from North Ealing looking to get away from it all for the weekend. There's plenty of history and nature in this part of London and you'll want to come back again and again. We take a look at North Ealing and examine the best places, food, bars, and pubs. The blog is about West Ealing so I can’t comment on those places or on their quality. I have lived in Ealing, West London, for 20 years and naturally assumed the whole time that North Ealing was geographically north of Ealing. Transport for Londons report "Customer Service on the London Underground" stated that in 2007 North Acton was the station with the highest number of customers using the Oyster card and topped the list with a customer satisfaction share of 94%. ". North Acton. Station staff regularly participate in Transport for Londons annual Underground in Bloom competition, and in 2010 won first prize in the Fruit and Vegetable category, for their sweetcorn and strawberries. Instead, the name was chosen so that it would read the same way when travelling by train (i. e., north-eastbound on a west-bound platform) and so that it can be easily identified by people driving past the station (especially in the northbound direction which has its windows looking towards the station). The name was changed to Blackwall North at around the time of privatisation but has since been changed back to North Greenwich. The station was opened by the Eastern Counties Railway on 22 August, 1847 — original name North Woolwich. The station was renamed North Woolwich & North Greenwich on 15 January 1855; North Greenwich on 1 January 1870; and North Greenwich for North Woolwich on 1 July 1924 before receiving its current name on 29 October 1924. The two North Greenwich stations are around ¼ mile apart, connected by a footpath beside the NLL tracks. The original LIRR station and present day National Rail North Greenwich station are both served by National Rail trains, while the DLR station is also served by the Docklands Light Railway (DLR). The station was opened on 10 January 2007 by then Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, along with the neighbouring Canary Wharf station, as part of an extension to the London Underground network previously known as the Jubilee line, and now part of the present-day Waterloo & Greenwich line. The station is still called ''"North Greenwich for the O2"''on most Underground maps, and referred to as the "O2 station" in official documents, and by some London Underground staff. North Wembley station was built on the Bakerloo line, between Kenton and Northwick Park stations. It opened in the early 20th century as Kenton Bank and was later renamed Kenton. In 1947 it was renamed Wembley Stadium to coincide with the opening of nearby Olympic venue Wembley Stadium. The underground station changed its name again, this time to Stadium in 1952. During transport strikes in 1958 and 1962, the station was used as an emergency goods depot. It seems you can’t go a day without hearing about tube strikes, delays, overcrowding or safety concerns. In fact, according to the MET, North Wembley underground station is the safest on the entire London Underground network. It’s not the most exciting thing to write about, but it’s true, North Wembley is the safest tube station on the network. This might seem a bit random but I have a reason to tell you about this. North Wembley is one of the safest tube stations on the entire London Underground system, new figures show. The Northfields of today have a bit of a history involved. The station opened in the 1960s as a replacement for (what is now) West Drayton station situated a mile away. The old West Drayton station was the location of the first ever recorded train derailment, on the opening day of the line in 1838. It was notorious for having had a train slip off its tracks and fall into a ditch caused by faulty/old track that used to be infamously known as the 'ditch'. The station was opened in 1850 by the Great Western Railway, on their route from London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads. At first just a platform next to the level crossing and just one track, it became an important interchange with the opening of the North Wilts line in 1860. The GWR renamed the station Northfields & Norton Hill when they opened a second platform in 1874. The station is on the edge of the Northfields redevelopment, which consists of a number of 19th century terraced houses that are being converted into luxury apartments. Further down the road is St Paul’s Walden Bury, a large mansion that is also part of the redevelopment, and stands in the grounds of what was once a grand house that belonged to Henry VIII's chancellor. Northfields is a small halt station on the London Euston to Birmingham line which had a short service timetable due to its remote location. The station consisted of just two platforms and a run-round loop, on what was known at the time as the Birmingham and London & Birmingham Railways, but was later to become part of the London Midland and Scottish Railway. Northfields Station, which is located in Northfield, Massachusetts, was the first stop on the US leg of the travelling Line. Adams lived in Northfield for two years from March 1810 until September 1812 with his family. During this time, he worked as a lawyer with lifelong friend Theophilus Parsons. Northfields is a place in Washington DC that is otherwise relatively unknown, except to residents of the area. However, it houses an interesting history of important figures such as John Quincy Adams, who lived at what is now 1833 N Street NW from 1816 to 1818. Northala park is the closest green space to Wembley stadium and it features four man-made hills, constructed from the waste rubble of Wembley. Built in 1938, the hills were originally created as a getaway for the young children of the area (as well as providing some amazing views of both the Stadium and Wembley park), with an outdoor gym and play facilities. Unsurprisingly, they are now also used by professional Soccer players, including David Beckham, who was often able to be spotted practicing his volleys there before a match. The man-made hills located next to northala park and Northolt cemetery aren't a massive geological feature, but they are one of my favourite landmarks in the area. The four skyscrapers of granite and concrete look abandoned from a distance, but I soon discovered that they contain gardens and glasshouses filled with gorgeous plants. Northolt. A day in the countryside. For anyone living in Middlesex, there’s something missing. or is there? Something is missing. Is it a lake? No. Is it mountains? No. Is it a big house? Definitely not! Refuse the modern day consumer mentality of excess and just show me something I've never seen before. If you’re ever in London, I hope that you make time to visit Northala park. Nestled within the wealthy confines of the borough of Ealing, Northala Park is a truly unique place. You can take an afternoon stroll across the newly refurbished footbridges or read a book on one of its man-made hills. Northwick Park tube station is a London Underground station in Northwick Park, north-west London. It is on the Metropolitan line between Watford and Harrow-on-the-Hill stations, in Travelcard Zone 4. Despite the zone 4 designation the area around the station is primarily residential with almost all of it being in London's borough of Harrow. The origins of the construction of Northwick Park station are shrouded in mystery (or not, depending on who you ask). Northwick Park station is the closest tube station pair to Kenton (350m). Kenton and Northwick Park were originally built and planned as twin stations in order to improve capacity and interchange at the busy Warwick Avenue (Bakerloo) / Pinner Road (Metropolitan) crossroads. Due to World War 1-related delays, they ended up opening almost a year apart. The Wallington train line in north London is home to two stations that are only 350m apart. That’s just a nine-minute walk—and the perfect distance for avid cyclists and pedestrians. This means you can get to the nearest station, Kenton, without sitting in hours of traffic, or even putting on pants (sorry). There are quite a few stations located in North West London and the tube station pair of Kenton and Northwick Park are probably the most intriguing. Since this post is about Kenton I’ll take only half of the credit for this blog intro! The other half goes to my colleague who suggested it. Northwick Park is a London Underground station near the A406 North Circular Road (A406) in the London Borough of Harrow. The station is on the GJ branch of the Metropolitan line, between Kenton, and Preston Road stations. Northwick Park is a leafy suburb in Kenton, North West London, England and is home to the famous Capability Brown designed Northwick Park. The Northala Fields are a collection of four artificial hills, constructed from the waste rubble of Wembley stadium. Northwood I like to call it the Beverly Hills of Great Neck. Northwood is a very white, mostly upper class neighborhood that still has money from when it was a more affluent part of the town. This place is super far away from public transportation, so you pretty much have to drive or have someone to drive for you. The high school here is actually a higher level than Northwood Hills as it. Northwood. is a subdivision of Northwood Hills located in Shelby Township (Macomb Co. ) north metro Detroit. It is sometimes referred to as Northwood II, although this is not technically correct as Northwood II can only be one neighborhood. Northwood and Northwood Hills are different parts of a subdivision. Northwood is at the highest elevation in Allen County, but not exactly on the highest point above sea level. Despite being one of the best neighborhoods in Virginia Beach, Northwood is actually at a higher level than Northwood Hills. The Northwood Hills suburb is dozy. It’s a fashionable place to live and boasts an average house price of £463,574 – the third highest in north London. Dozing aside, there’s plenty going on here – shops, pubs, cafes and a well-regarded secondary school. But from my experience of this place, you’d barely know it. There are a whole bunch of residential streets where you could walk up and down without seeing another person. What the locals like I don't know but as far as I can tell Northwood Hills only has one thing to really recommend it (in my opnion) its name. Being a massive fan of The Archers, the mention of Northwood Hills in an email from Coventry Transport Museum certainly caught my attention. It was just a week before the events of this years big 75th anniversary episode, which marks the 80th birthday of Norman only son, David Archer – played by William Mervyn. Picking up a selection of old tickets for The Archers on the way back from London, I paid a visit to Northwood Hills with my dad. There are some very odd names for places in England. Who is to say where, or why some landed up with names like ‘Killinghall’, ‘Sculcoates’, ‘Ormerswood’ and so on and so forth? Well, I don’t know either. All I can say is that Northwood Hills had to be one of the best ones to have hit the local government office when it came to vote-casting for a new name for this district between 1934 and 1935. The Northwood Hills Estate borders the edge of Waterdeep, and is considered one of the more prestigious areas to live. It lies between the Tarry Lane District and North Ward, home of North Point on the Long Road, and contains a number of small streets and neighborhoods which are among the most expensive in Waterdeep. Around the time we were searching for a school place for our daughter, we found out that the Northwood Hills railway station had been chosen as she’d be starting secondary school around there. At the east end of Notting Hill Gate, a little way from Portobello Road, you'll find a small public park comprising a mews street of houses and little more. The park is very pretty, with grass and trees lining an old brick wall. Not much happens here (although they've been building a gym on the site for years, which should make it slightly less boring), but there are lots of people around, so it's worth going for a walk or sitting for a while. Just ten minutes away by Underground is one of London’s most tourist friendly boroughs: Kensington. Although it’s known to be home to the world famous performer, Adele, and The King’s Road, the place is a mecca for shopping aficionados and foodies around the globe. As we walked around Notting Hill Gate, the area reminded me of New York (probably because of all the people, buildings and shops). The house prices in NY are overvalued so I wasn't expecting anything less from England. The story of Notting Hill starts in the Medieval period. There was a friary here and for those of you who don’t know what a friary is it’s an area where monks and nuns live. If you’ve ever taken the tube from Paddington Station to Leicester Square or on a double-decker bus on Portobello Road, you’ve passed right by this location. My wife and I are both teachers and our relationship with this place – though brief – goes way back. The plaque (which can no longer be found) was untrue. The highest point in Europe is on Mount Musala in the Rila mountain range of Bulgaria at 2925m above sea level, and it’s less than 400 miles away from Oakwood. The station was higher than St Paul’s Cathedral, and higher than the Tower of London, as well as boasting the best panoramic views that I have ever seen in England. The bookings hall and the waiting room opened in April 1878. The booking hall was built by Messrs Mercer and Telfer of Southampton. At first it had a single:storey tramway viaduct, which swiched most of the Lancaster Canal's traffic away from the canal itself, and was extended in 1887, 1893, 1899 and 1902 to give four platforms and extra terminal tracks. Oakwood. The booking hall originally had a plaque claiming that the station occupied the highest point in Europe in a direct line west of the Ural Mountains of Russia, which is a very strange way of saying that its 300 feet above sea level. Oakwood railway station is a National Rail interchange station serving the village of Oakwood in east Staffordshire, West Midlands. It lies 3 miles south-south-east of Rugeley on the Stafford – Uttoxeter line operated by London Midland. Northwood. Is actually at a higher level than Northwood Hills. North Wembley Tube station: The Safest Tube Station On The Entire Network, According To The MET. North Wembley. The safest tube station on the entire network, according to the MET. Osterley & Spring Grove station was a short lived railway station in Osterley in west London on what is now the Heathrow Branch Line. Opened on 13 April 1930 it was intended as the temporary terminus until the extension of the Piccadilly line to Hatton Cross and was built with this in mind. The station took over from Hounslow West (opened 1 March 1883, closed 20 April 1930) which was between Osterley and Hatton Cross. Osterley & Spring Grove (renamed from Osterley on 1 January 1931) was itself closed on 29 April 1934 to be replaced by a new station, Turnham Green nearby. The entrance to Osterley & Spring Grove station was not to be found at the level of the road as you might expect but down a stairway leading up from the pavement. The stairs led to a passage which opened out onto two platforms behind the railway. This arrangement, common for stations of this period outside London, enabled passengers to avoid paying road tolls by crossing the bridge over the station after purchasing their tickets. Osterley & Spring Grove was an early and generously-proportioned brick station building erected by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway on its extension to Richmond of the West London Railway, which the company had leased in 1913. The station opened in 1925 and was closed on 3 October 1940 because the platforms were too short for the longer trains which were now running over London Underground's tracks from central London. Osterley and Spring Grove station (known until 1933 as Osterley Park & Spring Grove) was a railway station in what is now the London Borough of Hounslow, west London. It stood on the south side of Osterley Park Road (the A315) at its junction with Church Road. Although it is a mere 1700 meters long (with a maximum depth of 34m), the Greenwich foot tunnel is the world’s longest underwater tunnel. It runs under the River Thames in London, and has been in operation since 1910. The first electric underground railway ever built was built in London in 1890. This was the Hammersmith and City Railway and it was built with an oval cross-section which is more suitable for the rolling stock that runs on it. You're probably thinking of the District Line which was with a circular cross section. Construction started in 1898, and the line opened on 6th January 1902. It ran between Hammersmith and Barking on a single track route of 2 miles and 14 chain (4. 1km). The line included six stations; Shepherd's Bush (now Shepherd's Bush Market), Goldhawk Road, Latimer Road, Stamford Brook, Wood Lane and Barking. The Oval railway station is a commuter station on the London Underground. Located in the Kennington area of South London, it is the busiest station on the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines with 40 million passengers a year and over 2. 3 million passenger entries and exits annually. Built in 1890, Oval station was the first railway station in London to employ electrified tracks. This was a result of a growing concern for passenger safety, as many accidents were caused by steam engines. The current building was built in 1911 and is a grade II listed building. The first railway station to employ electrified tracks opened on the 9th January 1913 in London. Proving that their new innovation worked, it was demolished to allow for the expansion of Waterloo Station and used as a temporary building site. The first railway station to employ electrified tracks in London. Located at Wood Lane, from which it takes its name, the station is served by six London Underground lines and handles up to 87,000 passengers a day. The 19th of January 2013 the historic railway station would celebrate its 150th birthday. In honour of this, Oval is going to be a monumental stop on the London Transport Museum. After over 100 years of operation, this amazing structure still remains one of London’s best kept secrets. On the 30th of July 1969, I was seventeen years old and, like other teenagers with a taste for rock and roll, I was at work. That day I was employed by the British Electric Traction Company as an apprentice engineer. We were working inside what had once been the underground ticket hall of Oxford Circus tube station in central London. The sound system that is now located high over the escalators had not yet been built. We were driving steel posts into the floor to take the supporting structure for a pair of canopy structures that were being fitted to house two 35ft-long illuminated advertising boards. As we drove each post home, it reverberated through tunnels that seemed to extend forever beneath the heart of the world’s most famous shopping. Oxford Circus is a London Underground station. It was opened by the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway on 10 March 1906. The following year, it became a interchange between that company's line and the Central London Railway route between Holborn Viaduct and Covent Garden via the newly opened Tottenham Court Road tube station. This allowed easy access to the new buildings of Lincoln's Inn Fields and also to St. Pauls Cathedral. I hope the title of this post didn’t scare you. If you get lost in the origins of Oxford Circus, it’s very easy to do given the changes that has taken place. What was once a string of small streets is now one of the busiest thoroughfares in London. A lot has changed since that fateful day back in 1969. We’re going to discuss the history of Oxford Circus, how it has changed, and how you can get around in 2018. She was welcomed with great fanfare at Green Park, but they weren’t having much luck turning the train around at Oxford Circus. It took them a few attempts to find a route that eventually led them back towards Buckingham palace. The station was built with eight platforms, allowing much more capacity than other termini. The platforms were fitted with platform screen doors that help to make the station one of the safest in London in respect to passenger safety. Streamlined modernist design and clear lines of visibility were considered particularly important at a time when fatalities at major stations were still common. Although access to each platform is only possible directly from the ticket hall, each one is also subdivided by doorways and passages so that passengers do not cross mainline tracks when changing platforms. This was originally supposed to be the first underground station with horizontal sliding doors between platforms and the street, similar to those in Boston's subway, but this idea was discarded because of delays in implementing order and maintenance difficulties. Parsons Green is a National Trust Park in Hammersmith, London. It was created by John Wolfe Barry and his father as a reward for their client, Sir Evelyn Robert Haydon. In return they received a sizeable commission for the design of Tower Bridge. Parsons Green lies on the lower slopes of one of the South Downs foothills within the parish of Fulham and is situated on the banks of the River Thames at Chiswick. Parsons Green is located in Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is a station in Zone 2 that is known as the leafy sidings. This is because it used to be a major freight yard and the goods would be brought into London from all areas of the country. The name comes from the green that was originally located next to it when it was first built. The station was designed by Barry as part of the Underground's Metropolitan Extensions, which works by using the Metropolitan Railway's tunnels between Baker Street and Finchley Road via Swiss Cottage. Coincidentally enough, Parsons Green was designed by the same man whose fathers designed the Houses of Parliament (I didn’t know that, either…). Green Park was royal back then, but Oxford Circus is no longer. I’ve always been a huge anagram fan. I still play scrabble online at least once a week, and all of my friends are sick of it! So when it came to coming up with an article idea I decided why not do an anagram review of D&B Perivale – where two brands were merged into one. Lots of people might also remember that famous scene from the film Fight Club, where Tyler Durden explains how to tell if you have a dream or not. When I thought of the name Perivale, It was one of first names that came into my head as I imagined a permanent site for discussing railway matters. I also wanted it to reflect the importance of transport infrastructure generally, rather than focusing on train-specific issues. Have you ever wondered why there is a station called Perivale on the Metropolitan line of London Underground? In this article, I'll give you the historicity of Perivale station and other information about it. Charles Perivale founded Peve Rail, a train company providing transport services to Londoners in 1880. He is famously quoted as saying: 'A train of thought can be likened to a voyage on a ship'. Perivale is one of the Railway Series books by the Rev. W. Awdry and later fictionalized as Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends. Perivale. Is an anagram of rail peve. It's now owned by people who call it by its corporate name, Oxford Circus. Piccadilly Circus, in London's West End, is one of the busiest intersections in the world. The junction straddles the border between Soho to the east and Mayfair to the west with entrances to a number of monuments including the Trocadero and Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain to the north. A notable feature of Piccadilly Circus is an array of flashing media signs on the West façades of its buildings. The signs are in regular rotation by agreement with English Heritage who manage them on behalf of Westminster City Council. They started appearing in 2013. During the Blitz, Piccadilly Circus was badly damaged by German bombs. It is still possible to see signs of damage on some shop fronts and to find unexploded bombs in surrounding streets. The buildings on the western side of the circus are a 1960s-style concrete complex. As well as being the London terminus for the Heathrow Express, Piccadilly Circus station is a major hub for the London Underground and mainline railways. Its status means it is one of the UK’s busiest stations with millions of passengers passing through every year. Close to the entrance is a tall statue of Eros, holding his bow and arrows and standing atop a diamond-shaped time ball. The statue was placed there in 1891, replacing a fountain that had been installed in 1869. The Piccadilly Circus Tube station has many examples of the classic transport map, with lines including Bakerloo, Piccadilly and Victoria. Almost every self-respecting Londoner will know of this fabulous area – in fact this one would place Pimlico as one of the most popular areas in London. If you head over to Pimlico you will find some of the most glorious architecture and beautiful parks, monuments and memorials dotted around the area. Almost every corner you turn will lead you into a new hidden treasure. The Pimlico special blend was so good, it eventually grew into one of the best blends ever known. Pinner tube station, more widely known as Pinner station, is a London Underground station in the town of Pinner, within the London Borough of Harrow, in north-west London. The station is on the Metropolitan line between Harrow-on-the-Hill and North Harrow stations and is the northernmost station on the Metropolitan line within Greater London. The giant dog quickly became a fixture in the neighborhood and a local celebrity earning himself celebrity spectators, often on his way home from work back to his owner. Rufus's daily commute quickly became an event where people would line the streets to see the hulking dog pass by. Pinner is a town in the London Borough of Harrow. It has the largest proportion of Hindu residents in England and is also home to a large proportion of South Asian and Afro-Caribbean residents. A mix of 60% Havana cigars, 40% Acapulco Gold and an sensual nose of expensive croissants. The neighborhood's shopkeepers started lining up outside the store in hope to catch a whiff and bought cases right away. Plaistow was a quiet village in Essex before the arrival of the railway, but in 1839, it became a site for one of the most important railway stations in England – Plaistow Station. The station was opened on January 4th with two platforms and a turntable with a sandpit to aid the braking of the trains. It opened for services from Euston Square to Sheerness-on-sea. The opening days were marred by incidents of overcrowding and damage caused by over enthusiastic passengers. Plaistow, an old parish in the county of Essex, was located 3 miles from Bow and on the opposite side of the Thames. This location made it easier for people to travel to London which turned Plaistow into a thriving place. In a matter of years, it had evolved from a rural town to a busy urban center. Before the railway was built, Plaistow was just another small village but the coming of the railways turned it into one of London’s busiest stations. It became London’s first railway station when it opened its doors to the public in 1839. The journey time between London and Plaistow was slashed from 76 minutes to just 27. It was a huge achievement for both Brunel and the country, ushering in a revolution in travel. ". Dating back to 1876, there has been a train station in Plaistow Road. The original station was built by the South Eastern Railway Company on what is now known as Plaistow North, but used to be called the Bethnal Green Station. Preston Road station was on the very last part of the Piccadilly line, when the extension opened from Cockfosters to Northfields on the 15th September 1932. It never had a normal tube train shed, but did have a test train shed which apparently lasted until it was demolished in the 1960s. It was atop a hill in between the two sections of line into Cockfosters and frequently leaked water onto the track and through the tunnels. The mouth of Uxendon valley, now from the top of the embankment almost invisible under later buildings, was originally much more prominent. The mainline trackbed today follows the route of a rail-associated building (the former coach stabling facility) that was put up in the late-1990s and early-2000s. The original course of the line, at least from Uxendon to Harrow Hill, is also rather easier to follow on commercial maps. I used to live in Kenton, but where did I walk if I wanted to catch an overground to Uxendon Road? There was no path, just a line of trees at the bottom of my garden. This was before they built the platforms at Harman's Cross. So I felt quite possessive when I heard that the North London Line walk between Hampstead Heath and Brent Cross was going to go along Preston Road. The railway came to the Preston area in the early 1850s, first as a line of the London and Birmingham Railway. This was obtained by and incorporated into the London & North Western Railway (LNWR) in 1851, which built a station – the first intended for passengers – just south of the modern Bond Road bridge; it was originally named "Uxendon & Kenton". The station opened on 21 December 1939, in common with the rest of the stations on what was then the Uxbridge line. The original name served to differentiate it from the Metropolitan Railway’s Preston Road and Holland Park but was renamed for the short street in Tachbrook Park (now Stratton Way), on which it is located, in 1947. This station, at the time of its closure, was the last on the Metropolitan line outside Greater London. The other day in a meeting about the tube, I was asked “why is there a carriage shed on the Northern line?”. This shed is at Queens Park station and you can see it if you venture outside on trains heading north of here. A carriage shed as you may or may not know, is a place in which rolling stock can be stored between services. So why would the tube need such a place?. Queens Park. The site of the only carriage shed on the tube line: a wooden garden shed-like tunnel that you pass through on the northward part of your journey. This one was built in 1922, and it thus has that distinct 1920s feel. It's only up until 1940 that some platform sheds are built at stations, and all remaining timber sheds are demolished or felled by fire. The only carriage shed of the entire system is at Queens Park. It’s a temporary shed that was used during World War II to store carriages. Today, it still has the same wooden feel and garden shed-like appearance as when it was first built except for the fact that its located inside a tunnel and is surrounded by metal walls. Kings Cross. The site of the most suicide attempts on the tube line, short-lived white lights on all platforms, and a guy holding a ''Help me ―― I’m being held against my will''sign, who no one approached as he stood there for hours, lost in thought. This new train line I’m going to tell you about runs beneath the only carriage shed on the London Underground. A wooden garden shed-like tunnel that you pass through on the northward part of your journey. I'm interested to know why the wooden carriage shed at Queens Park has been built, and why commuters can only pass through it on the northward journey. Today it is amusingly known as Preston Road, as there is no obvious evidence left to suggest that it served the nearby Uxendon and Kenton villages. The name "Queensbury" is the official name of the area today. This was not, however, the case for all of the 19th century: the area initially arose around Queensbury station, as a colloquial description. The use of the term to describe what is now Queensbury developed from this early usage. The present-day Queensbury Station was built in 1874 on its present site but only approached from Finchley Road (then named Metropolitan Grove). Queensbury station building was completed in Autumn 1839. This was originally the southern terminus of the GNR, but is now known as Nunhead after a local housing development built over the area formerly occupied by the Nunhead cemetery. All of these houses were demolished as part of an extensive redevelopment plan which saw the old cemetery and surrounding areas transformed into a major commercial and transport interchange. The name Queensbury did not, when it was chosen, refer to any pre-existing area. It was coined by analogy with the adjacent Kingsbury station. The name was said to be derived from either King's Borough or King's Manor. It may also have been derived from Queensborough in Scotland. There is no evidence of a place called Queensbury prior to the arrival of the railway. In the late nineteenth century, when residential development began in Neasden the area was simply known as Tod's field. The first house built in Queensbury was on the site of 194 Finchley Road, and was named after the current monarch, Queen Victoria. The area, which is still often referred to as Tod's field, gradually became known as Queensbury. Like many stations on the Metropolitan Railway (MR), Queensbury opened on 1 October 1891. The MR first leased, and in 1913 began to buy, a number of small parcels of land adjoining the station from a number of different owners. By 1928 it had obtained nearly all the adjacent freeholds. Heathfields is one of Plaistow’s most fascinating streets. The lease of 99 years being due for renewal, the interests of West Norwood were alarmed lest it should be sold to a speculative builder. With the aid of his fellow-member, Mr. Joseph Hume, and other influential supporters, Sir John formed an association to bid for purchase in 1887, and finally acquired it for £28,000. The petition for opening this strip was signed by the Marquess of Abercorn, but came before the Commissioners while Lord Belper was chairman. They decided that there were no grounds for granting an exception in this instance, and that it should remain as a public roadway. Just roads and railway lines have dedicated books. Boat and plane services—the other crucial transport routes of their times—get similar treatment. And what of Queensway? It's a prime road on the edge of London, but has never been accorded a comparable study. Beloved of tourists, ignored by many Londoners (who don 't realise that it's about 2 km/1¼ miles long), and studded with buildings that are landmarks in different ways: department stores, music halls, tallest towers, cinemas, churches. Once a boundary for the City of London, it was established as a thoroughfare when the area started to be built up after the Great Fire of 1666. It remained a separate street with its own administration embracing one third of the area of what is now called the ward of Farringdon Within, until it was incorporated into the City in 1855. The railway opened in 1864. The line was double-tracked in 1891 and a goods depot was provided at the south end of the station. I’ve always enjoyed looking at Instagram, seeing what people I follow have been up to just in the past couple of days. But one station stood out on my London Underground Instagram map. It was nowhere near where I live, and it’s not even on the Tube network I have an Oyster card for. It was Ravenscourt Park — a station that only connects trains to other stations via the Hammersmith & City Line. Yet all year round people were posting photos infront of this station, showing their appreciation for its train overground view. I work near Ravenscourt Park in Hammersmith, and always thought it was one of the most beautiful places in London. Turns out my fellow Instagrammers don't agree. The southern entrance to the Park is by bus stop W2. Not counting the south side of the Park, and just including pictures that include the bus stop in their name, there are only 8 posts for 2016. What does your local tube station look like? Do you ever wonder why some stations are so heavily used and others are left to be forgotten? Using this map of Instagram posts I have created a list that breaks down the most Instagrammed stations in London. The image below was created using the Instagram API. It shows the least and most “Instagrammed” tube stations in London. The station buildings were rebuilt in 1902 and are Grade 2 listed. Prior to 1903 it was known as Oxford Road. This blog will take you on a journey from its beginning to its face lift with the addition of your very own superfast broadband service. In fact, many visitors to London fail to realize that it even exists. The station was first opened on 1st May 1869. This was the date that Rayners Lane station was opened in the old format (i. e. no suffix letter). The site of the station has remained virtually unchanged since then, even to this day they still use one of the original buildings. Services started running to London Paddington and you could go from Rayners Lane back to Ealing Broadway or North Acton via Acton Green and all for 3 shillings (15p) plus 2d for a light to light up the tunnel. However, by the early 1860s a number of houses had been built around the station, and the road from the station to Uxbridge High Street was lined with rows of shops. Given that there were now more people living near the station than there were at Rayners Farm, it was decided to officially change the name of the station to Rayners Lane. A few years later, when a railway worker's cottage was built on the east side of the station, it became known as Rayners Lane East. During World War 2, the tunnels in Redbridge were converted into an underground aircraft parts factory. The Tunnels were originally used to house the horses and carts that would carry food to and from the London markets. But in 1942, a proposal was made by Air Minister R. A. B. Butler to convert the tunnels into an underground aircraft parts factory, which would be safer from bombing raids than the existing above ground factories. The Redbridge tunnels are a network of tunnels in North London running between New Southgate and Arnos Grove stations. The three mile long tunnel system was completed in 1856, which allowed for the Midland Railway to bypass the congestion of London. Later, during World War II, they were used as an aircraft parts factory. Redbridge house, a midlands building that hides within its walls secrets of the Second World War. Between 1941 and 1945, No. 30 Chichester Road was used as a factory to produce parts for Spitfires and planes used to fight in the war. Nothing is too surprising here: Rickmansworth is just a couple of miles northwest of Chorleywood, the quiet little town that was the frequent location for Inspector Morse. Now you can make your own film – without all the bother of Blenheim Palace, where they filmed Felicity Kendal up to her neck in stuffed corpses, or the Royal Naval College at Greenwich where they almost hanged her as a spy, or Harrow-on-the-Hill, where she went to school but was expelled. In London, there are many film locations that you can visit. Among them is Rickmansworth, home of the North London Film Studios, where some of the most popular British films have been filmed, including Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and The Mummy Returns. This quaint town is also home to Rickmansworth Station which I found out is quite famous. Indeed, Rickmansworth station (and the surrounding area) has an impressive cinematic history, and my fascination led me to conduct my own film-location hunt. I soon discovered that every corner of this commuter-belt town seemed to have been filmed — from the railway bridge in the centre of town, to Pilgrims Hatch Lane and Riverside Drive by the Thames. When most people think of Rickmansworth, they think of two things. One is a railway station on the Metropolitan Line between London and Watford Junction… and the other is a roundabout where the A412 (Watford Way) meets the A404 (Rickmansworth Road). Website: rickmansworth. com. Why I live in Rickmansworth is because of this podcast on location-spotting, its a fascinating insight into what goes on behind the scenes of filming now, and how often shows/movies are filmed in the UK. Aside from Harry Potter, Rickmansworth is also home to the longest running Victorian-themed festival in Europe which attracts more than 100,000 people each year. During World War 2, London’s underground was used for a variety of purposes, including as air raid shelters and for storage. Roding Valley. One of the quietest tube stations on the line, transporting the same number of passengers in a year as Waterloo does in one day. Surrounded by trees and bushes, you can forget you’re in London until you see the huge cement pillars of course. I am used to them now, but they still have their novelty factor for visitors from far away foreign lands such as. erm. Err. well, actually I don't know anyone from outside London, nor have I ever gotten a visitor from anywhere other than Leicester. Maybe my lack of social life is part the reason for that. If you are travelling from Liverpool Street to Enfield Town, Roding Valley is the named stop on your journey. That’s assuming that you know it even exists. Roding Valley is the quietest tube station on the London Underground network (in terms of people plying its platforms) in a year it will transport the same number of passengers as Waterloo sees in one day. As an archetypal commuter borough, there is one tube station in the London Borough of Bromley which takes commuters to their destinations daily. Roding Valley is not particularly close to any of the major destinations in South East England – it’s more than 40 minutes into London Bridge, and nearly an hour to Kings Cross or Liverpool Street. The Roding Valley Line is one of London’s most forgotten underground rail lines. There are 8 stations between Barking and Ilford – a distance of only 5 miles. In distance, however, it is quite a significant difference compared to the other lines. Filled with the 'beigeness'every commuter could do without, Roding Valley — in North-East London, Kentish Town — is by all definitions, a train station. Roding Valley. The quietest tube station on the line, transporting the same number of passengers in a year as Waterloo does in one day. The train tunnels at Redbridge were used as an aircraft parts factory during this time. The Porchester Castle as it was then, is now where one can pump a pint of Stella, Harp, Magners or Guinness, but with its history in beer, the name would have been synonymous with beer to drinkers back then. It’s variously documented as meaning “a manor house” (in Cumbria), where the “pub by the castle” now stands. See the below for more information (links open in a new tab). The original Royal Oak was featured in many photos taken by Peter Greig, a photographer who met the Beatles and John Lennon during the 60s. He accompanied John and George to Sweden when they went to collect "I ♥ John" badges from Beatles fans who had collected a proof-of-purchase card. An area of wider East Marylebone, covering streets to the north and south of Marylebone Road. It is named after a nearby pub (still there, but now called The Porchester). ABOUT ROYAL OAK The modern extension was conceived in 2004 by Jerry Tate when the existing building was decided to be demolished and replaced with a new one. Ruislip station has three platforms, all of which are served by the slow lines (Piccadilly and Metropolitan). Interestingly, it is also one of a few stations with different slow lines on different sides of the station. Its actually possible to reverse trains here during the evenings and weekends, but this does take up all three platforms so its not done at peak hours. The track layout is pretty convoluted as passengers can leave both from Platform 2 and 3 in both directions. Ruislip station opened as 'Ruislip and Ickenham on 1 October 1933. It is currently managed by Great Western Railway who operate all trains serving the station approximately four per hour in each direction (half non-stop, half stopping). It is served by both Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines through Ruislip Manor station which is located a very short distance from the present station site. Ruislip station once had an extensive network of sidings which served many factories in the area. However, nearly all have now closed, been lifted, or were removed when containerisation made them redundant. Royal Oak is an oddball square borough in the middle of Greater London. Its origins go back to Roman times. Royal Oak is a high-end area where properties rarely come up for sale. The original name was temporarily forgotten. The next time you’re sitting on the Piccadilly Line and waiting for the train to rattle into Rayners Lane, spare a thought for Daniel Rayner, after whom the station is named. Russell Square is located on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury and was laid out in 1826. It’s named after the 3rd Earl of Bedford, Francis Russell, who acquired some of the area in the 1670s. In size the square is 149 feet (46 metres) by 104 feet (31metres) – that’s a lot less than Leicester Square which measures 195 feet (59 metres) by 175 feet (53metres). I first came upon the sign whilst spending a day out on the platform. There was plenty to do with a helicopter visit a short walk from the station. Recently, though, I discover it has been moved and now sits off near the new entrance. Which is great until you reach the top of the steps and realising once more they haven’t counted quite right. If you didn't know already, Russell Square tube station actually lies on the Northern Line between Euston and King's Cross St Pancras. Connecting the bank of the Thames to the centre of London, it sits beneath adjacent buildings including those that house the British Museum and University College London. We all know that you can’t build Rome in a day. But don’t, whatever you do, tell the council. It seems something of a trend for local councils to invest heavily in improvements to the public realm and then not bother to count how many steps there actually are on any particular flight of stairs. Russell Square is in Bloomsbury, and part of the Bedford Estate. The square consists of a public park, a garden, two complementary buildings and around thirty other residential, office and retail units that surround this green space. If you've ever walked round the fields of Russell Square in London before, you may have noticed a rather intriguing plaque in the ground. Ruislip Manor is a small village in the London Borough of Hillingdon. The area has undergone rapid, extensive modern housing growth since the 1970s, and today has grown into part of its own underground town centre at Ruislip. Ruislip, home to West Ruislip Station. Suffered heavy aerial bombardment by the Luftwaffe during WW2, due to its proximity to RAF Northolt. The oldest house in Seven Sisters is the six-story family home at 67 Sisters Avenue. The house was built for John Edward Tims in 1854 and underwent extensive renovations prior to being split into apartments in the 1920s. Since 1949, it has been used as a furniture showrooms and warehouse. It is now under renovation to be converted back into a single family home with only four stories. A fixture in the South Delhi neighbourhood of Vasant Kunj, seven 70-foot-tall elm trees form a canopy over the street below. This geometrically shaped road is one of the most beautiful roads I’ve seen. The street is lined with colourful, people-filled stands and streetside cafes, and is a popular weekend jaunt for locals from all over New Delhi. We are in a unique position in this century to understand how our ancestors lived. Exeter is fortunate to have the remains of seven elm trees which have stood in the neighbourhood since the 1730s, known as The Seven Sisters, planted by five families of seven sisters. What did these elms mean to their ancestors, and what were their lives like?. This famous east London suburb has a number of things to boast about, some fairly well-known (Museum of Childhood, Scala Cinema), others less so (the Algate Circus conservation area, the William IV pub and The Oak). But there’s no doubt that Seven Sisters is more than just the sum total of its parts. This local myth has been popular with the local people. The overground halls of power at London Metropolitan University are testament to the pay-off you can reap by being in the right place, at the right time. Built in 1966 when the concrete was still wet on neighbouring Shepherd's Bush House, their new futuristic home leap-frogged its academic peers. Here, in this style-less box of an office block, were some of Britain's finest brains; far removed from the shabby corridors and darkening old library of Clement Castle House. Past Westfield and we pass through Shepherd’s Bush. This station only has 7 working lifts, which is shocking considering the size of the station. The money to install lifts at Shepherd’s Bush came from the Jubilee Line Extension budget. I don’t know the exact figures, but with the new line running through a lot of Billionaire’s Row in Battersea, the cost-benefit would have been pretty low. So why not use the money to build a few extra platforms instead?. Today I went to Waterloo Station for the first time in several years. Not anything exciting, just a quick trip up to Shepherds Bush for a job. Something bothered me when we got there though – the fact that the station had no lifts. The reason being is that due to nearby utilities, installing them would have cost 100m. I thought that was odd at first but then I realised something: thats about half of what it cost to build the entire Metropolitan Line. W ere you aware that the lifts at Shepherds Bush Tube station are so expensive to install because of nearby utilities? The MSN article goes on to exclaim that due to a lack of investment in the London transport network, it's "no longer fit for its purpose". Given all the above, with apologies if we've been blunt we question whether you know what your purpose is. It’s the little things about London that always tickle me. Shepherds Bush is an area in west London, W12. It is near to Goldhawk Road and White City and has a short border with Acton’s north. Shepherds Bush is aptly-named after a farmer named John Shepherd, who had a pasture there. To date, the neighborhood continues to be one of contrasts, notably between the architecturally rich western part and the eastern part – less so today – plagued with high unemployment and crime rates. Shepherds Bush Market was built as a retail hub in 2001. With an Edwardian line-up of shops and some of London's biggest transport and entertainment venues, Shepherds Bush Market is one of West London's busiest hubs. A short walk from the Shepherd's Bush tube station on Hammersmith Road, the market area attracts a diverse range of shoppers with its selection of quaint tea rooms, esoteric independents and big name brands. On your next day out in town, why not head west to this thriving retail hub?. Shepherds Bush Market is a major street market in Shepherds Bush, London, England (grid ref TQ3178). It was built by the Metropolitan Board of Works to provide a new focus for the retail development of Shepherds Bush, which had grown rapidly since 1900. The market retains its original layout and is now a grade II listed building. Navigation: Use upper right grey menu to scroll down list. Shepherds Bush has been a place of residence, thought that goes back hundreds of years. It has formed part of the royal hunting ground and has had many of its landmarks altered as a result. The area was once lined with market stalls and a show area, which is where it gained the name Shepherds Bush Markets. There are so many places to eat in Shepherds Bush Market and it can be hard to choose which one to go to. I’ve listed some of the best restaurants here. If you’re craving something other than food, there are plenty of shops and bars where you can hang out with friends. Shepherds Bush is a district located in West London. It is a very popular residential area, famous for its many shops. The Shepherds Bush area also houses the BBC television headquarters and the British Army’s Military Personnel, Welfare and Household Division. I still can’t get over the fact that they have no lifts at Shepherds Bush and other tube stations because of the expense, despite the large cost of building those lines as well. Though the main entrance of Snaresbrook station lies on 80-82 Station Road, there is another side entrance on Hackney Road. This slightly hidden entrance is only as deep as the subway which takes you from Station Road to Hackney Road. From street level there was simply a warren of steps, but a set of black iron gates lay hidden behind ivy covered walls. Long before this photos was taken, the left hand gate had been painted bright red (I can find no evidence), and I expect it was done for preservation purposes. The wall has since been covered with bricks and the paint has peeled off. The station was opened on 21 May 1864 as part of the Metropolitan & St. John's Wood Railway, the first railway in London Underground history to be constructed by a private company, and was known as St. John's Wood Road. On 1 April 1868, ownership of the M&SJW passed to the Met, after a track sharing agreement had been negotiated with the (then) regulator of all railways in London, the Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW). The Met renamed the M&SJW the Edgware Road on 1 June that year. The first station was built in 1839 … at the end of what is now Snaresbrook Road on a branch line from Woodford via Leyton. The station was opened as the terminus of the Great Eastern Railway (GER)’s original line to two years after a branch for freight traffic only had been built from Lea Bridge to Stratford. After the GER was merged into the London and North-Eastern Railway (LNER) in 1923, passenger usage declined and a new station opened on 1 October 1928. Snaresbrook is a London Underground station on the Highams Park branch of the Central line, located in the Snaresbrook area of the London Borough of Redbridge, northeast London. The station was opened in 1947. It is on a viaduct with two platforms. The deep level tunnels emerge into sunlight immediately north of the station, before continuing south towards Wanstead. At Snaresbrook railway station you’ll find a glimpse into turn of the 20th century England. The station was constructed during the boom of railway expansion, and still has many original Victorian features. I drove past South Ealing today. It’s one of the happiest places on Earth, even though it only hosts a fraction of the chocolate factory tours and Jessica Simpson concerts that North Ealing does. It is also incredible that South Ealing has five vowels in its name, and that those vowels are arranged in alphabetical order. It’s this kind of magical realism that caused Alejandro Jodorowsky to wax poetic about “Ealings” in his film The Dance of Reality, which is a film that I can only describe as the human artistic response to Günter Grass’s The Tin Drum. I live in South Ealing but always forget it has all five vowels in its name when I’m telling people where I live. The mistake gets increasingly embarrassing every time I make it, partly because the last four times it happened were at SEO conferences with hundreds of people in attendance. At a minimum there were probably about one hundred people just in my eyeline any given time I made the gaffe. That’s 100 pairs of eyes that rolled back in their heads or shot open and stared at me like a deer caught in the headlights. South Ealing is a district of west London. South Ealing is a London Underground station. South Ealing is an English indie pop band. South Ealing is in the Borough of Ealing, West London, between East Acton and Ealing Broadway stations. There is a bit of a shortage of vowels for this occasion in the first two instances. South Ealing has, as you guessed, five vowels in its name. Pretty cool, huh? But wait! There’s more! Did you know that South Ealing is the southernmost neighbourhood of Ealing Common? What an amazing coincidence — two facts that can be related to each other (in this case the number of vowels and geographical position). The station was opened by the Metropolitan Railway (MR) on 7 June 1905 and was originally named Sudbury Street, but was soon renamed South Harrow. The station facilities were provided on the north side of a level crossing on South Road (now Western Avenue). This included a small building with a tiled roof, providing booking facilities and a glassed-in ticket area where tickets were sold from wooden counters. There were also two wooden waiting shelters, one on each side of the level crossing entrance gates. Ely is a railway station in Ely, Cambridgeshire, England. The station was opened on 8 May 1845 by the Eastern Counties Railway. It is currently an intermediate stop on the Ipswich to Ely Line north of Cambridge. It is situated between Culver Junction with the East Coast Main Line and Waterbeach,9 miles 51 chains from Cambridge. I know! I know you’re thinking “South Harrow? That’s just a bit of railway track. Just a train, crossing a marsh. What’s the big deal?” But I tell you — when I saw the names of the destinations that appeared on my ticket, a chill ran down my spine. South Harrow is a Tube station in the London Borough of Harrow, located between Rayners Lane and Eastcote on the Uxbridge branch of the Metropolitan line, in Travelcard Zone 5. It was opened by the Metropolitan Railway (Met) on 1 April 1880. I recently had to wait for a train in South Harrow. This made me curse the fact that I live in west London and have to travel so far to get to work every day. While I was waiting there was something that caught my attention. South Ealing is a district in the London Borough of Ealing. It has all five vowels in its name. Local historians and residents argue whether there were 7 sisters or 7 elms in the area, but the point is that the area was named 7 sisters because of the elm trees. South Kensington station was opened on 24 December 1868 by the Metropolitan Railway as the current terminal of its line from Farringdon. The station building was built on a sliver of land at the junction of Old Brompton Road and Thurloe Place, on what was originally market garden land. It is adjacent to Imperial Wharf railway station but it is not known whether this connection was intended or ever used. A plague pit? Well a plague pit certainly makes for an interesting blog title, but more importantly than that, the area I’m talking about is interesting in itself. South Kenton is a ghost station in Washington, D. C. What appears to be a grey brick building is actually the side of an apartment complex on the edge of Petworth. The fake station was placed there to make it look like a real Metro station. In fact, the pavement is higher than the train tracks below it. It all started during the Metro's infancy when they wanted to quickly finish their stations to entice ridership from their opening day in 1976 and chose South Kenton as a temporary location for their northernmost stop, which they felt would grow into more importance over time with commuters. Construction started without proper permits; therefore, Metro never had to go through with finishing the job properly, and they still haven't. South Kenton Station, located in south London, had become redundant before it even opened to passengers. On July 14th 1871, the local paper published an article about the newly opened station. However, during the construction of the railways line (which had taken five years) they discovered a dip in the ground which caused significant problems for trains to use South Kenton Station. It emerged that while constructing the railway line, the builders discovered that there was a dip in the ground approximately 300 yards behind South Kenton House. This dip meant that trains would be unable to stop at South Kenton station without hitting its platform with it’s carriages. South Kenton. It’s a little used station by London standards, and sits on the London Underground District line in Zone 6. This means the area is relatively cheap to rent or buy homes in, and due to its proximity to the major transport hub of Kenton Marylebone that has coffee shops such as Pret A Manger and Modbits, it’s an ideal place for students and professionals to live. Aspects like these make South Kenton an increasingly desirable place to live in London, but it does have one problem: Its platform is built too high for the trains that pull into it. South Kenton station is a London Underground station, located in Travelcard Zone 4 and served by the Metropolitan line. Entrances to the two platforms of the station are found in a little used alleyway which leads from South Kenton High Street (acting as a public footpath), and also through a pair of metal gates on Delancey Park Road, both of which lead to shallow staircases down to the platforms. South Kenton. It has one of the most terrible stations in the country. Its platform was built too high for the trains, and never corrected. It is impossible to get out with any luggage if you don't have dainty ankles, and the fumes from the engines are abominable. Do you remember the station that never was? Neither do the majority of South Kenton residents. They call the station Pretend South Kenton. The only ones that know about it are engineers, and a few passengers. There is a little pub on the roundabout in the village, The Plough. This used to be a bustling, much frequented establishment serving many local customers. However, during 2007 & 2008, it fell out of favour, and the business was put up for auction and bought by a new company. You could say that although the name remains the same, it's now a different pub with just as much character. South Ruislip. It's where I've lived for the past 2 years. Been here 5-5½ at a stretch. Had a cellar, then a shed. Neighbourhood not what it once was but much else is unrecognisable from when I arrived not to me, but to people who haven't been away and moved back perhaps. A little luck and good judgement avoided the worst, although the crash caused extensive damage to the roof, rear of the house and resulted in a hole in one bedroom roof. The plane skidded off the roof and ended up upside down on some neighbouring gardens. South Wimbledon is a suburban district in south west London, between Wimbledon and Morden. It is residential but also has some industry, including food manufacturing and a large Sony distribution centre. The area has a mixture of low and medium-density housing, with flats above shops in the High Street and the Broadway, and semi-detached houses and terraced houses nearer to Merton. There are two parades Central Parade (just off the Broadway) and South Parade (off the High Street) both consisting mainly of shops. South Wimbledon tube station was opened in 1926. The original name proposed was Merton Grove but it was renamed South Wimbledon and Morden to try and sound classier. In my opinion, the word Wimbledon has ruined this area of London and there is now a Wimbledon effect where everything in the area gets named Wimbledon. 'South Wimbledon'would be an opportunity for the local Council to ditch the Wimbledon part, leave the surname South, and make this one of the few stations not named after places around it. Probably the most convenient of Wimbledon’s various tube stations, South Wimbledon has two platforms and is served by the Northern line. Despite this, it rarely seems busy or overcrowded. It seems that Tooting Bec and Colliers Wood might get just as many people, if not more. South Wimbledon station is a National Rail station in the London Borough of Merton. It is on the Wimbledon branch of the Waterloo to Reading line, and the off-peak service is two trains per hour to Waterloo and two to Wokingham. South Wimbledon station was opened on 14 April 1926 as part of the Morden extension from Wimbledon to Sutton. The station takes its name from the nearby area, rather than the nearby town centre (which is, in fact, Morden). South Wimbledon opened in 1926, and was briefly known as Merton Grove. It was renamed South Wimbledon to make the area seem classier. I’m referring to the South Kensington Campus area of South Kensington, and how it’s smack-bang on top of a series of old plague pits. Wimbledon station has undergone a much needed makeover. The universally panned stainless steel and plastic red benches at the southfields station have been replaced with new ones in wood and metal. Hallelujah! These should be rolled out to other stations too not as part of a "seasonal" change but regularly. That is even without considering the extra costs to upgrade your trains or improve your stations. Southfields station, on the District line, is a bizarre beast. Every year, the platforms are painted and then covered in an inch or two of grass so they appear like a tranquil countryside farmer's field full of cows. Then, for about a fortnight during Wimbledon fortnight, they are covered in tennis courts. And then it's back to being green again. There is an odd juxtaposition between the Wimbledon tennis championships and the Southfields underground station, located a mere ten minute walk from the tennis courts. The Southgate shopping centre opened in the early 1960s as one of Britain’s biggest malls, covering over 40 acres with over 400 shops. It was a landmark of Britain’s “new” post war economic boom. As shoppers gravitated towards out-of-town shopping complexes, Southgate slowly declined. By the mid-1980s, it was largely given over to discount shops and offices and its name was changed from Southgate Shopping Centre to Plaza One. In 1998, Safeway was found guilty of selling rotten meat in Southgate and fined £10 million by magistrates at Bow Street magistrates court. − The Daily Telegraph 20 August 1998 The story became known as the Horseburger Affair. ". Billed as the first 'air line'in the world to be opened for public service, this pioneering motoring service took its maiden journey on 18 July 1919. Running from the original terminus near Talbot Road in East London, southward to Croydon and Sutton, before terminating at Crystal Palace. Southgate Tube Station is in Travelcard Zone 4 and is served by the Piccadilly line. Southgate station is located approximately 900 metres away from Woodside Park Station where there are several London Buses services. There are two London Underground stations in Southgate, North London. One is on the Northern City Line and the other on the High Barnet branch of the Northern line. Southgate is the most south westerly station on the Northern line. The tube wouldn't be nearly as good without it. The Station Garden is more than a place to catch your breath during your commute. Southwark tube station is one of the stations serving London's Jubilee line that opened on 20 May 1999. The eastern-most station of the three Underground stations in Southwark, it is located under Borough High Street, between The Borough and London Bridge stations, within 150 metres of each. Southwark station is atypical for a deep-level Underground station with street level entrances above rather than below ground. It is also one of the smallest on the network, with platforms measuring 18 metres (59 feet) in length. The new generation of stations. is defined by its large-scale community art installation, known as the blue cone. Each station features an original design in three dimensions, hand-crafted from glass reinforced polymer and painted with a glossy coat. The end result was a seamless integration of art into everyday life. A light and airy structure suspended from the main station roof, the inverted cone of Southwark station's outside escalator offers a unique vantage point for passengers on the higher floors. It was conceived by architect Will Alsop and took nearly five years to complete. Standing in a triangle just south of the Thames, and somewhat hemmed in by an aggressive roundabout – Southwark station is both public transport interchange and part art-installation. But it was the blue cone that got me wondering – what does it represent?. Southwark Stations blue cone wall, built as part of the Jubilee line extensions new generation of stations, was inspired by an 1816 stage set for The Magic Flute at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. Southwark Underground Station – Southwark Stations blue cone wall, built as part of the Jubilee line extensions new generation of stations, was inspired by an 1816 stage set for The Magic Flute. In fact, it's an oasis of calm in the bustling heart of Wimbledon. South Kensington tube station was originally opened in 1868 and despite having no notable buildings above ground that date from this time, it is still considered one of the most beautiful stations on the network. St. James Park is a Grade 1 listed building, making station improvements considerably difficult. In fact, its the only Grade 1 listed station (although Bank has a Grade 1 listed entrance). However, as we know from previous projects at Westminster and Bond Street, sometimes simply painting lines on the ground will resolve crowd flow issues at stations. I don't know if you've noticed but some of the tiles in St James Park are raised from the platform and as a result its very easy to trip up when you're carrying bags or belongings. So can we please get these squares in place quickly and not let this issue deteriorate any further? If not then there's an outside chance that I might physically trip up and injure myself at Westminister Station. The project team has examined every option available to continue the station improvements including various types of lifts, bus decking and ramps. The only option that will allow us to continue the improvement work at St. James’s Park, while maintaining its landmark building status is a step-free entrance on the south side of Victoria Embankment. We are also continuing our investigations into how we can maintain other improvements originally planned for this station where possible. St. Jamess Park station is one of the busiest on the Underground, with Northern line trains at peak hours running every 100 seconds. Due to its position underneath The Mall (Britain’s most famous street), it’s difficult enough to get access to for upgrades, let alone having a Grade 1 listed building above you. St. Jamess Park Station was a problem for Transport for London (TfL). Located on the Victoria line, the station had no lifts and desperately needed improvement. For these reasons, TfL would not put any money into it, so in 2014 TfL utilised a new funding model to allow developers to pay for some of the works. So, it was a real coup for the Jubilee Line Extension project to take over the empty and neglected station. The station upgrade was part of the original scheme. However, between the Jubilee Line Extension being halted and then reopened in 2005, TfL had to fit the upgrade into a limited budget. I was reading a Tube Chat forum on reddit when I came across a post about ridiculous station names on the London underground. St. Johns Wood naturally came up and it turns out it was the only station on the entire network (not including DLR / Overground) not to share any letters with the word mackerel. Although I wasn't able to find any documentation from TFL confirming this fact, I did discover that some of the stations were renamed at some point in 1926, which would explain why the "M" was dropped from 'Mackerel". St. Johns Wood railway station, or just plain St. Johns Wood for those who support brevity, is an unassuming station on the Jubilee Line. This is one of my most recent stations and I’ve not yet ventured out to see where it’s located; between Willesden Green and Baker Street That in itself might get a little boring, so instead of telling you about the area (that’s what Wikipedia and Google are for), I’ll let you know when a train departs from the platform serving “mackerel. ”. The Circle line is one of the most popular lines that links all of London's major tourist spots. You’ll find stops at places like Trafalgar Square, Borough Market and Leicester Square. St. John’s Wood Tube station is very unique in that it is the only station on the network not to share any letters with the word mackerel. St John's Wood station at the north-west corner of Lord's Cricket Ground is the only station on the London Underground network that does not share any letters with the word "mackerel". This is a huge and wonderful building. Designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, he of Liverpool Anglican Cathedral and Battersea Power Station fame, it contains facilities for the storage of redundant electric substations, and for the testing of transformers. It also boasts a thundering great rocket chamber, which is where they test power distribution transformers. Electricity pylons are whisked into St. Paul's from all across the region and hooked up to the rocket chamber which then fires a big doughnut-shaped current of electricity around the system to check its safety. Though originally constructed in the early 1900s for use as a ventilation shaft for the City of London Station, in the Second World War it became a key part of the British defence effort. The entire railway network of England and Wales was effectively operated from here: not just the trains themselves, but also communications between stations and HQ, and movements of troops and materiel. St. Pauls has been electric since 1882. Prior to this date, there were two gas-powered generators on site. The boilers reached their capacity by 1900 and the use of electricity greatly increased afterwards. Before London had a way of storing surplus energy, whenever demand was high, it would overload the current capacity of the generators or even cause them to fail. Moses Bensusan St Pauls is the eleventh district of London, in the area of Central London and is located to the north of the River Thames. St. Paul's district is geographically sandwiched between two famous and different central London areas The City and Westminster to the east. St. Pauls was the last station to be opened on the Central line. It is situated in a deep cutting and has escalators connecting the platforms with the ticket hall. Upon stepping off the escalators it is possible to see out over the City of London. The St. Pauls Cathedral Control Room was built in 1943, and operated from this location until 1976. The only station on the London Underground network not to share any letters with the word mackerel. About in the city of London is Stamford Brook, the first tube station to have an automatic ticket barrier installed on 5 January 1964. It is on the Circle and District lines between Turnham Green and Stamford Brook stations (but closer to Turnham Green). For a while it was called ‘Bacon Lane’ after a nearby street as that was easier for people to say; it appears in some Underground maps from that time. London Underground’s history stretches back to 1863 when the Metropolitan Railway (MR) was built from Paddington to Farringdon Street in central London, with stations at Paddington and King’s Cross. Below are a few of the lesser known facts about the London Underground, updated for 2018. I found 'Stamford Brook'tube station the other day and decided to do a little research, as you do. The result was both surprising and made me wonder how many times I had passed the station, without really knowing anything about it. The first station to have an automatic ticket barrier installed on 5 January 1964. Now, building works have begun on the last section of the Bakerloo line extension. Stepney Green, now a fairly unremarkable urban crossroads in East London, was built on the site of an ancient village. It is known that the Romans stationed a garrison there and the village name might have been "Streeta". The village became known as Stepney in the Middle Ages. At this time it was a rural suburb on the eastern boundary of London and occupied by wealthy merchants and lordly landowners whose houses were fortified to protect them from thieves and robbers. The parish church of St Dunstan and All Saints, built in the thirteenth century (but since rebuilt), sits beside it on the bank of the River Lea. Stepney Green station is probably best known for its presence in the Wallace and Gromit film The Wrong Trousers. Not to be confused with Stepney City Farm, which is just up the road a bit. Or with the current day Stepney Green primary school which is about 100 metres further still. Or with the Stepney gangster of the same name who died in 1854. Or even the Stepney I met outside The World’s End one evening a few months ago, who was wearing orange shorts but came across as quite charming really. Wheel bearings and pawls were subsequently unearthed in Stepney Green and the Upper and Lower East Smithfield. It is thought that these wheel sets are likely to belong to doors from Henry VIII’s time or earlier. "Not much is known about these early doors other than they would have been built into a wood frame around 1530-40," said one of the Museum's researchers, Chris Gidlow. LONDON, Aug. 19, 2015 /PRNewswire/ A historically significant Tudor-era bowling ball unearthed by archaeologists during excavations on behalf of Crossrail has been unveiled at Stepney Green, ahead of the 150th anniversary of the first ever game of cricket played under modern rules. A cricket ball dating back to 1646 was found near the Bank of England during London’s Crossrail construction project. Archaeologists believe the handmade round object is a bowling ball from Stepney Green, a five-pin bowling alley that stood just outside London during the 17th century. One of the more important discoveries to be made during the Crossrail dig is the remains of a Tudor-era bowling alley, complete with bowling pins and bones. Archaeologists at Stepney Green have found an outhouse believed to have been used for storage of various goods. This will see London’s most difficult station to improve get a little better. Theres a lot of history at Stockwell Tube Station. Its not only served key roles during both world wars but it also played an important role in the 1884 workers strikes. The platforms are also much longer than normal, measuring a staggering 270ft each. Today I have to share with you one of London's most special and unique stations, its called Stockwell tube station. When the Underground was being built, in 1906, they originally planned for a railway running towards Clapham South. The Stockwell London Underground station has a secret facility at its end. This is where the tubes stop and beneath lie two tunnels dug out for air raid shelters that are now used to store vitally important archived data. Below the platforms there are two tunnels that make up the remains of an air raid shelter; these tunnels are still used as a secure archive for many old files, dating all the way back to the Walworth Road station. I always enjoy a ride on the London Underground. My favourite stations include Baker Street and Moor Park (the latter of which I’ve photographed in the recent past). Another good one is Stratford. Not only is it busy enough to escape the hustle and bustle of the Central Line, it also has the shortest escalator on the network, with a vertical rise of 4. 1 metres. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can check out my photo album here. There are currently 20 escalators serving the Northern line platforms at Stratford station. If you’re looking for the shortest one (of those that remain), then look no further than the one leading from the westbound platform to the upper level concourse — with a vertical rise of 4. 1m, you’ll be whisked to ground-level in no time. The eastbound equivalent can be found adjacent to Bobby Moore Court on the eastbound platform. Stratford station is the lowest level station on the London Underground, and it can be quite dim at times, particularly when you are riding on the escalator from the platforms to the ticket hall. The station has been virtually rebuilt on two occasions, and its platforms have been extended to 12 carriages from the normal eight. The first extension took place in 1931, when they built longer platforms to accommodate the longer trains that were being introduced at that time. At that time the station also became a ‘sister’ station to Sudbury Town as it was decided by the London Underground and the London Passenger Transport Board that both stations had such high levels of passengers and trains passing through them that they should be connected by a series of tunnels under the road so that passengers could walk between them without having to go outside – even at night when the ticket hall was closed. We’ve all seen them: Pigeons — some eating, some resting, others just flying into the glass panes and winding up on the floor. Sudbury Hill station in north London is a haven for pigeons. Even though they’re an eyesore for passengers, the station is so popular for pigeon feeding and resting that plans to cull them have been put on hold because it would simply relocate them to surrounding areas [source]. St Andrew's Road and Sudbury Hill Station are said to have drawn inspiration from Swiss curd cheese, which was originally developed in the United Kingdom. There are more than 40 types of Swiss cheese, many of them named after towns and areas within Switzerland. This may have been a factor on the development of this area," the spokesman added. The Metropolitan Line station is visited by officials from Transport for London every three months. Their job is to count the number of 'avian visitors'on the station's CCTV camera in order to assess whether it needs to be taken off the line. Swiss Cottage is more than a famous pub, it’s a location on the outskirts of London, a stopping point between central London and the North. It was originally built to serve the workers at Tyburn Convent, a place they could rest before making their way up to town. Now, the building houses the Swiss Suite Hotel, along with two other local pubs — the Red Lion and Bulls Head. You’ll also find cafes, delis and various other stores selling everything from antique knick-knacks to travel essentials. My first flat in London was a single room shared with a friend in Swiss Cottage. We were ridiculously close to the pub, which meant that we were often visited by very drunk people on weekend nights looking for their missing friends who had spent the previous night on our sofa. Ugh. The Swiss cottage was built in the 1830's and named after the "Swiss Tavern", a nearby pub. Later, it became a living museum and (hopefully) inspired some of the locals who attended these public evening outings to buy their own houses in the Victorian style to match the tavern.North Greenwich
North Wembley
Northfields
Northolt
Northwick Park
Northwood
Northwood Hills
Notting Hill Gate
Oakwood
Osterley
Oval
Oxford Circus
Parsons Green
Perivale
Piccadilly Circus
Pimlico
Pinner
Plaistow
Preston Road
Queens Park
Queensbury
Queensway
Ravenscourt Park
Rayners Lane
Redbridge
Rickmansworth
Roding Valley
Royal Oak
Ruislip
Russell Square
Seven Sisters
Shepherds Bush
Shepherds Bush Market
Snaresbrook
South Ealing
South Harrow
South Kensington
South Kenton
South Ruislip
South Wimbledon
Southfields
Southgate
Southwark
St. Jamess Park
St. Johns Wood
St. Pauls
Stamford Brook
Stepney Green
Stockwell
Stratford
Sudbury Hill
Swiss Cottage