Secrets under the streets of London

Secret London. Underground London (other than the Tube). Sounds exciting, right? I’ve been looking into the secret bunkers that exist below our city’s streets – stuff from the Second World War (it was never just the Cabinet War Rooms) and the Cold War. Quite a few of them are under Whitehall as one might expect, but there are some that involve Tube stations and a few out in the suburbs. I had no idea there was one in Mill Hill! Anyway, the resulting article is now available to read on Londonist…

http://londonist.com/2016/05/london-s-secret-bunkers

Northern Heights, or why the northern bits of the Northern Line look the way they do

There are a few things that might cause people to wonder about the northern bits of the Northern Line. Why, for example, does East Finchley have two platforms that are never used? 

Are those openings at the end of the platforms at Edgware meant to be tunnels?

What’s with the old station above Highgate?

And why does the single-track branch to Mill Hill East even exist?

The answer is that they were all part of an ambitious pre-war plan for the Tube that was never fully realised. The New Works Programme, announced in 1935 by the London Passenger Transport Board (the forerunner of TfL), aimed to rebuild several stations across the network, introduce new rolling stock and incorporate some suburban steam train services into the London Underground – all at the same time. The part which related to the northern ends of what was then called the Edgware, Highgate & Morden Line was known as the Northern Heights Plan.

In 1935, what would soon be named the Northern Line ran to Edgware on the north-western branch and a station called Highgate (not the present-day one) on its north-eastern branch. These two termini were (almost) linked by a railway line that connected Edgware with Finsbury Park; this was one of the lines that would become part of the Tube.

Opened in 1867, the Edgware, Highgate & London Railway ran from Edgware to Finsbury Park via Mill Hill, Finchley, Highgate and Crouch End. It was a branch line of the Great Northern Railway (GNR), and it meant that Central London could be accessed by rail from those places which had hitherto been villages. Further branches to High Barnet and Alexandra Palace followed.

The line had problems, mainly the gradient which made it difficult for steam trains (despite various tunnels, cuttings and viaducts), while passenger numbers dropped when trams were introduced in some areas serviced by the line. It also didn’t quite fulfil its potential in terms of the suburban development that was expected to accompany new railways. The late Victorian period did see many new homes built along some parts of the line; for example, the parish of Finchley’s population rose from 4,937 in 1861 to 11,191 in 1881. However, the railway failed to trigger the development that might have been expected at its furthest point. Edgware remained rural, and was arguably changed more by the introduction of a tram service from Cricklewood in 1904.

What really turned Edgware from a small town in rural Middlesex to the North London suburb it is today was the extension of the Tube from Golders Green in the 1920s. A brand-new station opened in 1924, a new parade of shops was built along Church Lane (renamed Station Road) and streets of semi-detached housing quickly sprung up in what had been open fields. Census details reveal that the population of Edgware shot up from 1,516 in 1921 to 5,352 in 1931.

The expanding suburb, though, was built with the future in mind. The GNR’s original plans had allowed for a future extension towards Watford, and the building of the new shops across the road from the station allowed for a tunnel to run underneath them, while the streets beyond were laid out in order to accommodate a yet-to-be-built train line. It would be a decade before this could be put into effect.

Under the Northern Heights Plan, the line from Edgware to Finsbury Park, which after 1923 was run by the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER), would become part of the Northern Line. The Tube tunnel from Camden Town out to Highgate – which, in order to avoid confusion, was eventually renamed Archway – would be extended to the Highgate station on the railway line, reaching the surface just before East Finchley. Highgate station itself would be rebuilt as a multi-level station, with the surface-level platforms continuing to serve the line to Finsbury Park while the new underground platforms would link to Central London via Camden Town.

North of Highgate, trains from both the surface and underground platforms would run up to Finchley, from where they could go to either High Barnet or Edgware along the railway tracks which would be electrified so that Tube trains could run on them.

The other part of the Northern Heights Plan was that from Edgware, the line would extend into Hertfordshire to a planned new terminus at Bushey Heath (to be located at the A41/A411 roundabout), with additional stations at Brockley Hill and Elstree South. The intention was that, as had happened with Edgware a decade earlier, new suburbs would be built alongside the new line. The Northern Heights Plan wasn’t just adapting an existing line; it was about building a new one – and continuing London’s urban sprawl – as well.

It also required some stations to be rebuilt. Highgate was to go from a surface station to a multi-level one, and the architect Charles Holden, already noted for his futuristic Piccadilly Line stations, drew up plans which, if realised, would apparently have seen the station topped by a statue of Dick Whittington – a nod to the (probably apocryphal) story about the medieval Lord Mayor of London being summoned back to the City when he heard the church bells as he climbed Highgate Hill.

Holden also planned to incorporate local history further along the line, with statues planned for the stations at East Finchley (an archer, representing the area’s past as a hunting ground) and Elstree South (a Roman centurion, referencing Watling Street). Even the station designs were ambitious!

The redevelopment of Highgate as a multi-level station meant that the next station on the line, East Finchley, also had to be rebuilt to allow for trains to run south on two different lines. Holden therefore planned it as a four-platform station, with the two outer platforms serving the tunnel route to Highgate and the inner platforms the surface route. He went for an Art Deco design, while the sculptor Eric Aumonier was commissioned to construct the archer statue. Unveiled in July 1940, the Archer is almost twice natural size and has become synonymous with East Finchley.

As the date of the statue’s unveiling implies, work on the Northern Heights Plan had not (immediately) been curtailed by the Second World War, although blackout regulations did restrict work at night. Electrification of the High Barnet branch continued, and it reopened as a London Underground service in April 1940. The underground platforms at Highgate opened in January 1941 (they were immediately put to use as air-raid shelters), and for many years the newly-elongated tunnel was (via the Bank branch) the longest railway tunnel in the world.

The line between Finchley and Edgware, which had closed to LNER passenger trains in 1939 as a precursor to electrification, was only electrified part-way and that was just on a single line. The reason for this was that Mill Hill East station was needed to allow easy access to the nearby Army barracks which was the depot of the Middlesex Regiment, and as such a required destination for new recruits.

The work on building the extension north of Edgware had been a lower priority than electrifying the LNER lines that already existed, but some work had begun prior to the outbreak of war. The carriage depot at Aldenham had already been built, as had the arches that would support the viaduct at Brockley Hill station, and the tunnel at Elstree South had been dug. There had also been some work done at Edgware, such as the entrances to what would have been the tunnels under Station Road. That, alas, was as far as it got.

After the electrification of the line to Mill Hill East, work halted for the duration of the war. When it ended, the Northern Heights Plan had to be reviewed because new legislation needed to be taken into account. Specifically, the imposition of the Green Belt around London prevented further suburban development, which in turn destroyed the main reason for the extension out to Bushey Heath. It was abandoned, although it was depicted as ‘under construction’ on some 1940s Tube maps and not formally cancelled until 1950. Those parts of Edgware that were spared housing in the 1920s because they’d been ear-marked for a future Tube line have since been built over.

Electrifying the stretch between Mill Hill East and Edgware was still viable. However, the funding was not available as the extension of the Central Line (another component of the New Works Programme) and reconstruction of war damage were both much higher priorities. Somewhat controversially, Edgware and Mill Hill were deemed by the powers-that-be to have ample access to Central London already, and the direct link between the two branches of the Northern Line was scrapped; in its place, residents got a bus route between Edgware and Mill Hill East. The line continued to be used for freight until 1964, following which the tracks were removed. Part of it was subsequently buried under a new road called the M1, although other bits – namely the Copthall Railway Walk and the Mill Hill Old Railway – are now nature reserves.

The surface part of Holden’s Highgate rebuild was never realised. The old surface station continued to be used for passenger services run by the newly-nationalised British Railways between Alexandra Palace and Finsbury Park, although this was affected by coal shortages and passenger numbers declined. The service ceased in 1954, although the tracks weren’t removed until after freight services stopped in 1970. Today, the surface platform and some of the old buildings remain in place above the Tube station at Highgate, visible through the trees. The station building at Ally Pally is now a community centre. Further down the line, the platforms of Crouch End station, lost to the Tube, are still in place. The line now forms the Parkland Walk nature reserve.

With no surface-level passenger traffic heading south, East Finchley’s inner platforms were and still are only used for trains running between there and High Barnet, or for trains going to the Highgate depot. Services to Mill Hill East continue to run on the single line, albeit just as a shuttle service from Finchley Central outside peak times.

The entrances to the Elstree South tunnels were filled in (there is no evidence of these on the surface today), while the Aldenham depot became an aircraft factory during the war and a bus garage after it; it was demolished in the 1990s. The viaduct arches at Brockley Hill survived into the 1960s although only the bases remain today, visible from the A41 at the point where the (sub)urban sprawl of Greater London peters out into open countryside.

The Northern Heights Plan was definitely ambitious, and the part of it that did become reality – the High Barnet branch – remains a part of the Tube network today. The 1930s were a time when the people running the Tube were thinking big, and it took a world war to stop expansion in its tracks. With hindsight some of the post-war cancellations were arguably short-sighted, and as a result the small details that remain and occasionally intrigue – East Finchley’s extra platforms, the Mill Hill East spur, the Edgware tunnel entrances, the station above Highgate, what’s left of the arches at Brockley Hill and the nature reserves – all stand in their own way as monuments to what might have been. At least as far as the latter are concerned, the commuter’s loss really is nature’s gain.

Sources

T.F.T. Baker, J.S. Cockburn & R.B. Pugh (eds.), A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 4 (Victoria County History, 1971)

Tony Beard, By Tube Beyond Edgware (Capital Transport, 2002)

David Bownes, Oliver Green & Sam Mullins, Underground: How the Tube Shaped London (Allen Lane, 2012)

John Glover, London’s Underground (Ian Allan, 2003)

Charles E. Lee, Sixty Years of the Northern (London Transport, 1967)

Colin & David McCarthy, Railways of Britain: London North of the Thames (Ian Allen, 2009)

G.F.A. Wilmot, The Railway in Finchley: A Study in Suburban Development (Finchley Public Libraries Committee, 1962)

How did the Tube lines get their names?

I wondered about this myself, and decided to find out. The result can be seen on Londonist via the following link:

http://londonist.com/2015/08/how-the-tube-lines-got-their-names

Adventures on public transport

A full-on Tube strike presented a dilemma; leaving the arguments of who's right or who's wrong aside, how on Earth was I supposed to get to work? Like many of my fellow-Londoners, I rely on the Tube on a daily basis; getting the Northern Line from East Finchley to Moorgate is my daily commute. Were there any viable alternatives?

There is a bus that goes from Highgate to Moorgate which I have taken before when the Northern Line's been out of action, but it takes an age to get there and would take even longer on a strike day when there would be more cars on the road.

I could always cycle to work. I used to do that when I worked in Hendon rather than the City, but one of the reasons why I chose not to was the reason why I don't cycle to work on a regular basis - it would involve going via Highgate, twice a day. I may occasionally challenge myself by going up Swain's Lane (to prove to myself that I still can more than anything else), but not on a daily basis. Bradley Wiggins I am not.

Boris bikes, those relatively recent additions to the London travel scene, were out too. What with there not being any docking-stations for those out in the suburbs, I'd still have to get to one of these by public transport and then I'd be faced with whether or not a bike would be available, and if so I'd need to ride it through a busier-than-usual metropolis. So no. One day I will give the Boris bikes a go but a strike day was not the day for that.

The TfL website told me that the quickest way to get to my place of work that didn't involve the Tube would be to take the 263 bus (Barnet to Highbury via, among other places, East Finchley) to Highbury & Islington station from whence I could travel to Moorgate by train. Again, no. I've seen those trains disgorge at Moorgate during the rush hour and they are jam-packed at the best of times. I didn't fancy that.

But wait; wasn't there another option from Highbury & Islington? Something called the Overground? while not going into the City, it does as least go very close to my place of work.

A combination of several suburban railway and ex-Tube lines, the London Overground is best described as an ever-expanding part of the National Rail network that is run by TfL and so has branding similar to the Tube (and, indeed, it features on Tube maps). In operation since 2007, it has incorporated the old East London Line and (in 2012) the South London Line so that it now forms a loop around Central London. The bit that interested me, though, was Shoreditch High Street - which is just as close to where I work (in terms of walking distance) as Moorgate. I'd used it for the odd journey before, but never as a serious commuting option.

When the East London Line was part of the Tube (it was originally part of the Metropolitan Line and didn't get its own colour until 1990), its northern terminus was Shoreditch, one of the least-used stations on the network which was actually closed a year before the rest of the line was closed for renovation and rebranding. When the line re-emerged as part of the Overground, Shoreditch (once part of a branch line connecting the East London Line with Liverpool Street) had been replaced by the all-new Shoreditch High Street, built on the site of the old Bishopsgate goods yard and part of a new stretch of track which links the East London Line with the Kingsland Viaduct, which in turn is the bit that connects with the North London Line (Richmond to Stratford; always a railway line rather than the Tube, and the first stretch of track to be rebranded as the Overground).

The Overground it would be, then, but I still had to get to Highbury & Islington first. Unfortunately, my clever plan to take the 263 bus was also an idea that had occurred to many other East Finchley residents, and indeed residents of suburbs through which the bus had to pass before it got to East Finchley. I'd got up earlier than usual to allow for the longer commute but the first 263 bus to get to my bus stop of choice would only let four people on as it was already full; I stood back to let the dozen or so commuters who'd made it to the bus stop before me sort things out before texting TfL's very useful when-is-the-next-bus-coming service to find out how long I'd have to wait.

The upshot was that, despite having started my journey to work earlier than usual, I was still in East Finchley at eight o'clock, the time at which I would normally expect to be getting on the Tube.

Things picked up after that. The second 263 bus of the day had more spaces, and after a mile or so of standing in a densely-packed group on the lower deck a few upper-deck passengers got off and those of us nearest the stairs surged upwards to claim their seats. 

By ten to nine we'd made it to the bottom of the Holloway Road, where I and just about everyone else disembarked for Highbury & Islington. Everyone else was more interested in the line to Moorgate so I was able to saunter onto the Overground train waiting at platform 1 and take my pick of the many available seats. One very calm train-ride later, I disembarked at Shoreditch High Street at five past nine, and was at my desk by quarter-past. Not bad at all.

There was, of course, still the commute home but I wasn't that worried, as I'd liked what I'd seen of the 'ginger line' (yes, it already has a nickname and it is the subject of that indefatigable London walker Iain Sinclair's latest book; its place in the life of London is therefore assured even though there is always the chance that it may eventually become a victim of its own success - rather like the city it serves). I also had a 'cheat' option for getting home - Allison, who'd done the sensible strike day thing and opted to work from home, had offered to come and pick me up from Gospel Oak station. Easy!

Shoreditch High Street at half past five on the afternoon was, I noted, a lot busier than it had been at five past nine in the morning. So busy that I couldn't get a seat on the train, which was only going as far as Dalston Junction. I did manage a seat on the one going from Dalston Junction to Highbury & Islington, and  it was when I got to the latter that things started to get messy.

I am no stranger to crowded trains. As a regular Tube passenger (despite what TfL says, I refuse to describe myself as a 'customer'), I am accustomed to getting up close and personal with complete strangers on a twice-daily basis, depending on how crowded things are, and I consider myself lucky if I get a seat (although I am in the habit of trying to improve my seat-getting odds by walking to the end of the platform on the assumption that the last carriage is the least crowded).

My desired platform at Highbury & Islington wasn't packed but there were tight knots of people in the places where the doors would open. As the westbound train came in, the shuffling for position began; a little brisk elbowing followed by the public transport equivalent of the parting of the Red Sea in order to allow people off (it's rather civilised that certain niceties are still observed even when things get to the point where 'every man for himself' could so easily become the way of things). Most people piled in after that but I held back; the interior of the train was packed and I thought I could wait for the next one, although no doubt that would be just as bad. 

But then the people who'd got on before me managed to shuffle in to create what looked like a space that was (just about) big enough for me, so I stepped on. The doors didn't move, and while the driver announced that if the doors didn't close after three attempts the train would not move for two minutes I leaned in. At the first attempt of the closing of the doors, two guys made a run for it; the first got on, barging into several people (myself included) as he did but the second got stuck in the doors, which failed to close as a result. Selfish bastards, I thought (but, this being London public transport, I did not utter this out loud; several 'tuts' - the highest form of criticism on British trains - were audible).

The doors closed at the second time of asking, and we were on our way; sweltering, of course (although not as bad as a Tube carriage below ground in a heatwave). I was able to grab a hand-rail but what with the press of humanity I doubt it would have made that much of a difference in the event of an emergency stop. 

Things got worse at Camden Road when the weird physics of train carriages asserted itself; despite no-one getting off, three heavy-looking Eastern European guys (to judge by the language) did manage to force themselves on. Somehow the crowd was able to absorb these extra additions - like I said, the physics of train carriages can be a bit weird. Just when you think no-one else can get on, some people manage to.

Luckily I was only on the train for a couple more stops. Despite the sheer volume of people, the magic words ('excuse me', preferably asserted with a degree of confidence which may not be entirely convincing in the mind of the speaker), worked and I was able to disembark. 

At the bottom of the stairs at Gospel Oak I saw something rarely seen at a suburban station; a line stretching a hundred yards along the street, marshalled by some attendants who let two or three people go through the barriers every minute or so. The station was operating a one out, one in policy. I turned and walked towards Highgate Road. 

Ten minutes later, I was in the car heading for home. The strike day commute was over.

Walk the Lines

I recently chanced upon a hardback copy of Walk the Lines by Mark Mason in a charity shop, and after reading the description on the dust-jacket, I thought I’d buy it and give it a go.

This book is a travelogue about walking the length of all eleven London Underground lines. In other words, London – and a fair bit of its outskirts – by foot. It’s undoubtedly an eccentric challenge, but it presents us with a very insightful view of modern London in all its forms – suburbs, industrial estates, open fields, the inner city and the point at which a poor area ends and an affluent one begins.

It’s not just about the places, mind you. On the way, Mason meets an interesting range of people, including the City of London planning officer, a novelist, a trainee cabbie and an actor from The Archers who did the ‘mind the gap’ announcements for part of the Piccadilly Line. He gets to climb up the NatWest Tower and Barnet Church. And he even manages to walk to Heathrow Airport.

As one would expect, there are some great pieces of Tube trivia here – for example, when the Metropolitan Railway opened in 1863, the Prime Minister (Lord Palmerston, who was 78 at the time) refused to attend on the grounds that at his age, he preferred to spend as much of his time above ground as possible. There is also an explanation for the convention of standing on the right on escalators. On a wider note, there’s a useful definition of what constitutes a modern-day high street from a man who, over the course of this book, has walked along rather a lot of them: “A high street ain’t a high street unless it can sell you a rawlplug.” (By this definition, I am pleased to report that High Road in East Finchley meets his requirement.) There is also plenty of food for thought for people who like maps, and in this sense Mason goes beyond the ‘I went to Stanfords to buy my maps’ travel-writer cliché.

Now an account of a series of walks, however interesting, may get dull after a while but Mason mixes things up to keep the reader interested. He is at various stages accompanied by fellow-walkers. He turns his Circle Line walk into a Circle Line pub crawl. Later on, he does the Jubilee Line by night, offering a nocturnal perspective on London. And by spreading his walks over several months, we see the city (and environs) through different seasons as well. Each walk tells a different story about the same metropolis.

I really enjoyed this book, despite the fact that Mason is rather disparaging about Edgware (perhaps inevitably, it gets compared to that other Northern Line northbound destination, High Barnet, and comes off second-best). This was a good idea for a book, and in Mason’s hands it’s a very good read. If you live in London, or are interested in London, you’ll find something to like here.

A new way of looking at London

One thing that never ceases to amaze me about London is how the place never stands still – there is always something new being developed or introduced. The place that I am proud to call home has a lot of history but it is always moving forward. The transport network is no exception, and with a few days off work following my return from Paris I ventured down to the Docklands to check out the latest means of getting around in London.

I remember being taken to the Docklands when I was a child, the principal attraction being the (then) new Docklands Light Railway. Back then, I loved the fact as the DLR is fully automated I could sit right at the front, and to be honest I still try to make sure I get the front seat even now on the rare occasions when I get to use it.

This time, the DLR was the means by which I travelled to the cable car service over the River. That’s right, London now has a fully-functioning cable car over the Thames! It links the Royal Victoria Docks with the Greenwich Peninsula – or, in this Olympic year, it allows for easy access between the ExCel Centre (the venue for the martial arts and weightlifting events) and the O₂ (artistic gymnastics and basketball). The idea is that it will be used by commuters as well as tourists once the Games have finished; in this context it’s worth noting that both stations are well-served by the existing transport network.

To my delight, I found that as I have a pay-as-you-go Oyster card I didn’t have to actually buy a separate ticket; all I needed to do was swipe my card at the barrier like I do when entering a Tube station. Oyster card holders get a discounted fare (£3.20 instead of £4.30 for adults going one way), a great idea if you ask me.

And so to the flight itself! Each flight – and yes, as with the London Eye, a journey on the cable car is officially referred to as a flight – lasts for around ten minutes and takes you 300 feet above the River, allowing views of (among other landmarks) the Dome, Canary Wharf, the Olympic Park, the Thames Barrier and the Royal Observatory.

I found the whole thing highly enjoyable – here was the opportunity to get a real bird’s-eye view of some great London landmarks, as well as the boats on the River! I thought it was a lot of fun, and well worth visiting. I walked away with a smile, glad to have seen London from a new perspective. It is definitely worth doing.

On the Greenwich side, I had a quick look around the Dome – not somewhere I have previously had cause to visit – and was impressed by the transport options available for me to continue my journey. As well as the Tube and the buses, there’s the option of taking the Thames Clipper into Central London should one so wish. I got the Tube to Stratford, not to check out the Olympic Park (that’s an adventure for another time) but because I could get an Overground train from there to North London while bypassing the City.

What I hadn’t bargained for was the identity of one of my fellow-passengers, something I was only alerted to when someone shouted out: “Hey Boris, have you got any spare tickets for the Games?”, followed by someone else approaching the well-spoken, suited-up man with the scruffy blond hair to ask if she could take his picture. Yes, the Mayor of London was travelling between his various engagements and appointments by public transport. With no security presence, Boris (note to non-Londoners – our Mayor is universally known by his first name alone) was perfectly happy to chat to people about whatever people wanted to talk to him about, and he was OK with posing for photographs as well.

I told him that Allison thinks he needs to get a haircut. He laughed; apparently, he gets told that a lot.