London's Spooky underground station.

Where can you stand on a deserted station platform during London’s rush hour?

Well the answer to that carefully crafted click-baity question is lots of places obviously, from disused stations to places that aren’t in London. So let’s narrow it down a bit to an active station and in Zone 2.

 

I’ve been to Essex Road station. It’s been on my to-do list for a while. It’s underground but not on the Underground, although it used to be. Originally built by the Great Northern & City Railway on its underground line between Finsbury Park and Moorgate, between 1933 and 1975 it was on a branch of the Northern Line known as the Northern City Line or, from 1970, the Northern line Highbury Branch. In 1976 the line reopened as part of British Railways and Essex Road is the only deep level station in London served only by Network Rail trains, nowadays operated by Great Northern.

 

I arrived on a train from New Barnet at about six-thirty in the evening, late in the “rush hour” but comfortably within the TfL peak period. Within thirty seconds of alighting the train I was on a deserted platform 1.

 

 

 

Crossing a side passage to platform 2 I found that almost as empty save for one grey-hooded figure whose presence didn’t register at the time. Were they really there or a ghost?

 

 

 

 There really are ghosts at Essex Road.

 

Well there are ghost signs at least. Although the trains are run by Great Northern throughout the station there are signs of the long departed Network SouthEast. This was a part of BR that served London and the south east of England between 1982 and 1994. You can see the NSE branding along the tunnel walls in the above platform photos but there is more. On platform 1 there are signs showing the stops on the city bound line to Moorgate.

 

 

 

While on platform 2 the country side network is shown stretching our into Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

 

 

 

It was eerily quiet - I didn’t even hear a See It, Say It, Sorted - while I lingered to take some photos and since I felt like loitering too long might attract attention I made my way towards the exit. Unlike many underground stations from the early 20th century Essex Road didn’t get a mid-century rebuild so there are no escalators, only lifts to the surface. An oddity is that to go up from the platforms you first have to go down a flight of stairs followed by the echo of your own footsteps.

 

 

 

Which leads to a spooky tunnel that curves around to the lower lift lobby so you can’t see your destination - or what might be lurking in the passages leading off to the side.

 

 

 

Which turned out to be the lonely figure of a passenger making their way to Platform 2 in the corresponding tunnel from the lift.

 

 

 

Because it’s not as spooky as you might first think, this subterranean world being well lit and festooned with CCTV cameras. The lift wasn’t empty either, half-a-dozen passengers having just arrived from Moorgate direction. The only thing hiding in the station above was the single Oyster/Contactless reader (there are no ticket gates here) which I failed to spot until I’d passed it.

 

Outside in the dark I paused to photograph the rather architecturally nondescript station building.

 

 

 

Then headed off down Essex Road towards Islington and the City.

 

 

 

Essex Road Station √

 

An interesting oddity, atmospheric if only a little spooky, don’t make a special trip though, I was passing through anyway.