Hidden Holborn

1st August

 

I went on another Hidden London tour, Holborn - The Secret Platforms, run by the London Transport Museum. This was I’m pretty sure the second day of running tours at Holborn tube station but the guides were already well into the swing of things and as usual it was all well organised and very interesting. Our group was met outside and after safety briefing, ticket and ID checks led through the ticket barriers and through a door into a swelteringly hot small space for the initial introduction by our enthusiastic lead guide Becky. this lasted only a few minutes but it was still a relief to move on to the slightly cooler spiral staircase and go down the 193 steps (I didn’t count them but I reckon that’s about the equivalent of a 15 storey building 😉 ) with walls still covered in original tiles in a white, brown, and blue combination unique to Holborn.

 

 

 

 After briefly emerging onto the eastbound Piccadilly Line platform we passed through another private door onto the disused platforms that formerly served the branch line to Aldwych. The first of which, that used to be the terminating platform, is now a row of disused offices and other spaces e.g. toilets. One of the rooms bore a sign for the “Central Line Model Railway Club”, sadly no longer used.

 

 

 

 At the far end of the platform we were able to get to down the the tunnel towards Aldwych, with the tunnel lights switched on else we’d have just been looking into a black hole. We had a shuffle round to take photos and a quick plug for the Hidden London Aldwych tour (I’ve already done that one back in 2018) before returning to the office/platform area.

 

 

 

 Before the station got too busy the disused platforms at Holborn were often used for filming. These days Aldwych or Charing Cross disused platforms tend to be used as they’re easier for film crews to access. We got a little film show here to remind us of some of the music videos filmed at Holborn and just how awful Superman 4 was, particularly the low-budget special effects!

 

Another short walk via tunnels and stairs took us past more original coloured tiles and a large fragment of early Piccadilly Line map to the other disused platform. This is the through platform, still connected to the tunnel in the photo above and to the live Piccadilly line to the north of the station so if you look down the tunnel in that direction and are patient you can get a view of the eastbound trains leaving the adjacent open platform. This platform has been used by TfL to test new platform decor so has some rather confusing signage.

 

 

 

 

 

The tour ended here with the customary round of applause for our four guides. It didn’t seem like about 90 minutes had passed which is the sign of a good tour and I even got used to the “Holl-born” pronunciation being used throughout, it’s always been “Ho-b’n” to me 😀. We returned to the ticket hall, thankfully not via the 193 stairs but taking time to appreciate the very long escalators instead. 

 

I took a lot more photos: Flickr Album

 

 

 

I’ve only given a brief outline of the tour here, there’s a lot more to discover by actually going there and yes, it’s not a cheap day out but it is worth it so if you fancy doing it yourself bookings are being taken for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday between now and November 10th with more dates to come in March 2025.

An Urban Ramble, Art Deco Factories and Charles Holden stations.

Osterley Station to Acton Town Station

4.9 miles, about 1h 40m. Mostly level but with three flights of steps.

In theory urban walking means not getting muddy but that probably depends on the weather and time of year. My shoes will need to be cleaned.

This gentle urban ramble links five Piccadilly Line stations, three of which were designed by Charles Holden and two of which look like they were but in fact weren't. It also passes along part of the Brentford "Golden Mile" of Art Deco style factories.

Osterley station is the starting point for this walk.

Starting in the station car park, exit up the ramp and turn left. If you want a better photo you'll have to run across the Great West Road but in spite of the trees the concrete illuminated obelisk on top of Stanley Heaps' 1934 station building stands out. This is one of the not-Holden stations but in the same modern European style that Holden employed elsewhere.
Walk East along the A4 Great West Rd towards Thornbury Road. If you want to take a look at the former Osterley & Spring Grove station, which is now a book shop then head north up Thornbury Rd. and then come back to rejoin this walk.

Sticking up between the pre-war semis on the far side of the road is the St. Francis of Assisi church which opened in 1934 and was designed by Ernest C. Shearman, who also designed a number of similar churches in the London area.
More about its history can be found on the church's own web site.


Gillette Corner marks the western end of the Golden Mile beyond which the land belonged to the Church Commissioners, who would allow no factories to be built.

The Gillette Factory, designed by Sir Banister Flight Fletcher in 1936–1937. Gillette stopped using this factory in April 2006, moving production to Poland. The building was sold in 2013 for conversion into a mixed use complex with a hotel and residential apartments. It has also been used as a filming location.

The Coty Cosmetics Factory, 941 Gt. West Rd., designed by Wallis, Gilbert and Partners opened in 1932. The building now operates as BMI Syon Clinic. The factory was used for the manufacture of Coty soaps, lipsticks, scents and creams until 1979.

Only the boundary fences an gateways remain of the Firestone Tyre Company factory. Built 1928, designed by Wallis, Gilbert and Partners.The building frontage was demolished in an act of corporate vandalism by contractors working for Trafalgar House Plc. during a public holiday in August 1980, shortly before a preservation order was due to be served on it to retain the Art Deco architecture. What a bunch of bastards ☹️ The Art Deco gatehouse was demolished in 2004 to make way for increased parking facilities. The remaining gates, railings, and piers are in a Jazz Modern style and are Grade II listed.

The Pyrene Fire Extinguisher Company, 981 Gt. West Rd., built between 1929 and 1930, designed by Wallis, Gilbert & Partners. Pyrene established the concept of major fire demonstrations with the construction of a large demonstration ground alongside the Brentford factory, to simulate an oil storage depot. Now called Westlink House and available to let if you fancy it.

The Currys Factory and head office, 991 Gt. West Rd., built in 1936 as the distribution centre for Curry's chain of shops a wide variety of goods including bicycles, toys, radios and gramophones. Curry's started as a bicycle makers but are now much better known as an electrical retailer - Currys PC World. Now Grade II listed, the front office building was restored by Foster & Partners between 1997 and 2000 for JCDecaux.


Just before the A4 crosses the River Brent take the stairs on the left down to the Capital Ring walk and continue along the riverbank and over the river via the footbridge to enter Boston Manor Park.

Continue diagonally across the open area following the worn and at the time I was there rather muddy path that passes under the M4 motorway.
There is a rather unsettling rattling from the motorway bridge above as vehicles pass overhead.
The park was created in 1924 from part of the historic estate of the 17th-century stately home Boston Manor.

 The manor house itself was swathed in scaffolding and plastic sheeting but the lake was busy with gulls, and the gullible feeding them.

Exit the park at the other side of the lake onto Boston Manor Road and turn left. Continue past the suburban semis, some of which have heavy iron chains that appear to hold up their porches but are almost certainly only decorative. Eventually you reach Boston Manor Station.

Originally opened in 1883 by the District Railway, Boston Manor station was reconstructed in 1932 to a design by by architect Charles Holden, the Art Deco styled structure features a tall tower which acts as a landmark of the area and is Grade II listed. If you cross the road in front of the booking hall and (if you're tall enough) look over the bridge parapet you get a good view of Northfields Train Depot, the other side of which is our next destination, Northfields station. Head back down Boston Manor Rd. on the opposite side to the station and turn left through the iron gates into Blondin Park.

 Continue past the allotments on your left and into the open space of the park. The land was acquired by the Municipal Borough of Ealing in 1928 and opened as a public park called Northfields Recreation Ground. In 1957 it was renamed Blondin Park after Charles Blondin the famous French tightrope walker, who lived locally in Niagara House. Exit the park into Blondin Avenue and at the end of the street turn left and walk up the road to Northfields Station.

The current Northfields station opened in 1932 replacing that of around 1911. Located on the east side of Northfields Avenue, the new station was designed by Charles Holden in a modern European style using brick, reinforced concrete and glass. Like the stations at Sudbury Town, Sudbury Hill, Acton Town and Oakwood that Holden also designed, Northfields station features a tall block-like ticket hall rising above a low horizontal structure that contains station offices and shops. The brick walls of the ticket hall are punctuated with panels of clerestory windows and the structure is capped with a flat concrete slab roof. Our next stop is not far away. Turn left out of Northfields station and left into Bramley road. Continue straight ahead into Airedale Road and at the end of the street turn left. Soon you will come to South Ealing Station.

The platforms of Northfields and South Ealing are only 300m apart. For the story of why they're so close see here.
South Ealing isn't a Charles Holden design but does have a little tower in his style even though the building only dates from 1988. Since our next stop is a bit further away this is a good place to stop for a coffee in one of the cafes in the parade of shops either side of the station. Once refreshed cross the road and walk south, turning left into Sunderland Road. Continue into Maple Grove and when you come to the open grass area of Village Park Recreation Ground take the path diagonally across it and walk up Almond Ave. Turn right into Elderberry Rd. passing the huge Ealing Electricity Substation on your left and being glad you don't live in one of the houses opposite. At the end of the road turn left onto Popes Lane and cross the road.

Follow Popes Lane for about half a mile. It's not the most interesting road to walk along being mostly semi detached houses on the right and sports grounds on the left. I've not been able to determine which Pope gave it its name either.
Eventually however it will bring you to Gunnersbury Park.

I've covered Gunnersbury Park in more detail in a previous posting. It's worth diverting into the park for a look around before continuing this walk, and both refreshment and relief may be obtained therein subject to opening hours. If you've more time to linger then a visit to the museum in the large mansion will well repay your time spent inside.

Onward to the final leg. Turn right out of Gunnersbury Park onto Pope's Lane (or if you didn't go in, then carry on along Pope's Lane) and cross over the A406 Gunnersbury Avenue dual-carriageway into Gunnersbury Lane.

About five minutes further walking brings you to our last stop, Acton Town Station, on your right.
Acton Town station was opened as Mill Hill Park on 1 July 1879 by the District Railway (now the District line).It remained as a terminus until on 1 May 1883 and 23 June 1903 the DR opened two branches from Acton Town to Hounslow Town and Park Royal & Twyford Abbey respectively. On 4 July 1932 the Piccadilly line was extended to Acton Town and now it serves both Piccadilly Line and District Line trains. The original brick-built station was built in 1879 and in February 1910 the station building was reconstructed. In 1931 and 1932 the station was rebuilt again in preparation for transferring the Uxbridge branch service from the District line to the Piccadilly line. The new station was designed by Charles Holden in a modern European geometric style using brick, reinforced concrete and glass. Similar to other Holden designed stations, Acton Town features a tall block-like ticket hall rising above a low horizontal structure housing the station offices and shops. The ticket hall has a projecting London Underground roundel sign over a canopy, the brick walls of the ticket hall are punctuated with panels of clerestory windows and the structure is capped with a flat concrete slab roof. It was given Grade II listing in 1994.

From Acton Town you can either get the tube back to Osterley or... well the world's your lobster really ☺️


More photos, a Flickr Album:

Blimey! It's like Piccadilly Circus round here!

23rd August 2019

The London Transport Museum's Hidden London programme has now added Piccadilly Circus station to its list of behind-the-scenes tours. Having previously visited Euston and Aldwych I signed up as soon as tickets went on sale for another 75 minutes exploring disused holes in the ground.

My plan to arrive in good time 30 minutes before the tour start was scuppered by signal failure on the Bakerloo, necessitating a more circuitous route from Paddington. Which meant I was five minutes late and only just in time to join the party in the main ticket hall of the "new", 1929 station. There we had a briefing on the construction of the new station and ticket hall directly under Piccadilly Circus and the statue of Anteros above, all of which is supported by the steel roof and supporting columns of the station below. This huge project took 5 years to complete and was London's "flagship" Underground station, decorated in Art Deco style using the best materials as befitted the "Hub of the Empire". Some of that decoration remains despite the 1984 makeover of the station.

Then it was down the long spiral staircase (the equivalent of a 15 storey building 😉 ) to the disused tunnels of the earlier 1906 station.
Disused that is from a passenger point of view but carrying many cables and other services and used for storing engineering kit.
There's a lot of unique original glazed tiling still extant on the tunnel walls beneath the grime of decades and modern services clutter. Our guides gave a good presentation on the development of the original station.

As with the other central London Underground stations Piccadilly was used as a public shelter during the Blitz, albeit initially against the wishes of London Transport and much of the rest of the tour focused on this aspect of the station's history. As it wasn't a purpose built shelter conditions were not good and eventually consideration had to be given to the toilet requirements of several hundred shelterers and how to then remove the resulting matter from the station deep underground - it doesn't flow uphill after all.

In the old station stairwell an ejection system using compressed air was installed, some of the supporting structure is still evident at the bottom of the shaft.

As well as London's theatre-goers the station was also used to secretly store safely 150 works of art from the Tate collection and London Museum. these had previously been at Dover Street station (Green Park) but London transport wanted the space there for it's own wartime operations centre.

Where the new station has two levels of escalators to get from ticket hall to platform the old station had eight lifts and we were able to look up into the huge lift shafts from the lift lobby near platform level.

Returning to the ticket hall (thankfully not via all those stairs) we exchanged hi-vis jerkins for souvenir booklets at the end of the tour and then I had a chance to look around the ticket hall at things you usually pass without

noticing such as the World Time clock and original exit direction signs.

As usual another very interesting Hidden London tour and a chance to see places from which the public are usually excluded.

For more dates at Piccadilly and other venues check the Hidden London pages at the London Transport Museum website.

Aldwych Station

13th October 2018

Hidden London Tour of Aldwych Tube Station

Aldwych station is at the end of a short branch line from Holborn on the Piccadilly Line. There has been no service on this branch since 30th September 1994 but it would be inaccurate to describe it as a disused station. It is still connected to the network and used for training emergency workers and as a film and TV location. The sign outside refers to it as a "non-operational station" which seems like a better description.

Public access is only usually available on one of the Hidden London tours run by the London Transport Museum.

The station opened in 1907 as Strand Station and was renamed in 1915 to Aldwych. At the same time nearby Charing Cross Strand station became just Strand.

The station was never heavily used and money was therefore always in short supply. In fact many parts of the station were never completed as the expenditure could not be justified. At the time of its closure in 1994 the branch was only being used by about 450 passengers a day.

It has however proved useful for other functions. In both world wars it was used as an air raid shelter and for storage of valuable national artworks. It was also useful for building mock-ups of proposed station designs, for staff training, and as a filming location - V for Vendetta, 28 Days Later, Sherlock, and Superman 4 amongst others.

For the tour we met up in outside the Surrey Street entrance and once the formalities were completed and we had our fetching pink wristbands (not hi-vis jerkins on this tour) we entered via the Strand entrance into the ticket hall.

The hall has original tiling though a more plain "economy" version of that found in other contemporary Leslie Green stations - economy being a recurring theme at Aldwych as it was realised from the outset that it would not be a busy station.

Down the spiral staircase 160 steps from ground to platform level (the equivalent of a 15 storey building) as the lifts are no longer working, again the original tiling still exists.

The eastern platform which wasn't normally used for trains has some of the original 1907 track, a lot of film set props, some station mock-up designs, and some interesting old posters.

Including this ironically topical one:

Good to see someone has been upgrading the cabling to meet 2015 fire regs:

On the western platform there is a train used for training and filming purposes (and on the tour for an audio presentation about the station as an air raid shelter in WW2). 

Dark in here, isn't it?

Tube aficionados will note that this 1972 stock train would never actually been used on the Aldwych branch and in fact this one hails from the Northern Line according to the line diagrams inside the cars.

The tunnel entrance to the rest of the Underground network. Note the partial decoration, another economy measure as the original trains were only two cars long only half the platform length was fully finished, later trains being three cars some extra basic decoration was added.

This way to Holborn...

The lift cars. Three double-car shafts were built but only one was actually equipped with two cars. Also the entrance passages to the cars were never finished and passengers entered and exited via the exit passages - another money-saving measure.

The lift controls. In 1922 the ticket office was shut and ticket booths built into the lift cars so the lift operator could issue and collect tickets as well, reducing the number of station staff required.

End of the tour. This old sign shows that Aldwych was considered an interchange with Temple station a short walk away on the District Line though not shown as such on tube maps. Temple is about the nearest station to use if you're going on an Aldwych tour being at the other end of Surrey St.

The Surrey Street station building. The odd spacing of the "PICCADILLY RLY' lettering is because it originally said Piccadilly Tube but the Underground Electric Railways Ltd. who opened the line (as the Great Northern, Brompton and Piccadilly Railway) didn't like the use of the term tube so it was changed.

As always this Hidden London tour was well run, informative, and enjoyable. You need to get in quick as spaces are limited and tickets not cheap but you get to see parts of London that most people never see and it's worth doing. If you are an LTM Friend you get advance notice of tour dates and early access to the booking system.

Flickr album with more photos here.