182. Battersea Power Station

 

Monday 10th July, 11.45am

I hadn't planned to visit this, or it's neighbour Nine Elms, until I'd finished visiting all 270 Tube stations, just to keep it neat with percentages, but then I found myself visiting the area so I ticked it off anyway.

The station is very much like the new Jubilee line ones although somewhere along the way their individuality has been lost and it's just a bit plain and boring. In the space with the barriers and the entrances/exits there's artworks on opposite walls where things flip over to make a long horizontal panel change colour. Badly explained, better in reality. The bit of the exit above ground is unimpressive but then I guess it would be silly to try and compete with Battersea Power Station.

Wikipedia entry here.

103. Notting Hill Gate

Saturday 7th November 10.30am

This is an entirely underground station with no surface buildings, just stairs to the ticket level and platforms, and other than that it's quite an unremarkable station.

Wikipedia entry here.

That is also the last station in Zone 1 ticked off my list. It's good to final complete a sub-set of the whole Tube thing, instead of just percentages. I thought I'd probably get a line finished first, probably the Victoria line as it's the shortest, but my travels haven't been that organised. But while it's good to achieve a goal it also makes me realise that it's taken me almost three years to do what was basically the easiest bit of the challenge. Goodness knows how long it'll take me to get to Chesham!

102.High Street Kensington

Saturday 7th November 10.10am

I'm not sure I really like the big fat strip of blue across the middle to accommodate the name of the station - it messes with the proportions. 

This is one of those stations where the train randomly stops and you have to switch to another service on the opposite platform which then doesn't seem to go anywhere very quickly. That's the charm of the District and Circle lines for you!

I liked this old labelling over a noticeboard:

Above ground you exit the station through a shopping arcade, which has a fancy domed roof over a cross-shaped layout, which is all as fancy as you'd expect from Kensington.

Wikipedia entry here.

91. Marble Arch

Saturday 4th July 3.50pm

I wanted this station to be grander. Despite being at the tale end of Oxford Street, the tattier end, it is obviously near Marble Arch which is of course a great big arch and I somehow thought it might reflect that. But no - its got a tiny entrance next to a Bureau de Change and near a MacDonalds. It -couldn't be less glamorous.

Down on the platform bits of the walls are clad with metal rather than tiles onto which are painted representations of arches. They look dated and cluttered, but as they were fitted in the 80s they're now thirty years old and have acquired value through age and survived a recent refit, which is a pity.

Wikipedia entry here.

90. Queensway

Saturday 4th July 12.10pm

There's something very familiar about this although I've never been to it before, mostly I think because it has lifts and is opposite a park so just reminds me of Lancaster Gate, which is the next station to it on the Central Line. There are lifts to the street level, but even when you get out of the lift there's an odd maze like passage to follow to get to the ticket office which makes no sense at all.

Wikipedia entry here.

84. Moorgate

Sunday 26th April 10.40am

I'm not sure I'd have been able to find this part of London before I started obsessively looking at the Tube map as there's nothing there to tempt me to visit. Perhaps that's why I found the station so unmemorable. The surface buildings are overwhelmed by the offices built beside and on top of them, and inside it's all tiled - there's nothing really old or really new about it to distinguish it at all. It's one of those stations whose history (and therefore Wikipedia entry) is more interesting than the station itself.

Wikipedia entry here.

83. Old Street

Sunday 26th April 10.25am

I'd been through this station a few times before I started this blog, enough times to develop a dislike for it. It's one of those that is built under a roundabout so you exit it from all manner of subways, which are confusingly signposted. There are shops down there too and the whole thing just looks run down. Admittedly they've been trying to spruce it up a bit since the area became the place to start up your IT business but they've got a long way to go - the signs on the stairs certainly help but it still looks like it needs a good wash.

I always felt it more accurately reflected the area than the things I was in the area to see - the fancy White Cube Gallery, and the swish Hoxton hotel - whereas the reality of that road is large blocks of flats and fried chicken shops. I like that mix - it's what makes London interesting. What I don't like is this station.

Wikipedia entry here.

80.Regent's Park

Saturday 14th February 6.40pm

I don't think I really even knew this station existed, for several reasons really: it's on the Bakerloo line, which I've never really got to grips with; it has no surface buildings so if I'd walked past I'd have assumed it was something to do with Great Portland Street station which is just up the road; and anyway, if I wanted to go to Regent's Park I'd walk from King's Cross. But no, there it is.

It's one of those stations with the name spelt out in tiles on the wall, which always looks great, although clearly they were put up before the apostrophe was invented:

Wikipedia entry here.

76. Elephant & Castle

Saturday 10th January 1.30pm

I'd been meaning to tackle this for a couple of months but was glad I saved it until the daylight as it's another one of those stations with loads of exits, which just comes out onto a roundabout with no visible landmarks. Despite having a map I wasn't confident I was going the right way until I came across a signpost. I didn't even get to come out through the old bit of the building (or even see it), so I feel like I had a disappointing experience of this station.

Wikipedia entry here.

73. Bond Street

Monday 22nd December 5.20pm

For once I actually need to be at this station to go somewhere, and hadn't just come through it to ticket it off my list unlike most of the other ones I've visited lately.

It's a dreadful disappointment: Bond Street suggests glamour and expensive shopping, but the entrance is actually through a rather dated shopping centre on Oxford Street. Stations with shops are my least favourite, particularly the hell that is Hammersmith but this comes a close second. It's also been a building site recently because of the Crossrail development, and whatever they've done to it doesn't appear to have made it any nicer, which is a real shame as it could certainly do with it.

Wikipedia entry here.

72. Cannon Street

Thursday 27th November 7.10pm

This was nowhere near where I needed to be but I'm desperate to get through all the zone one stations soon so I made a detour, and was then amazed to find it's not actually where I thought it was and is in fact not in the middle of nowhere but is within site of St Pauls cathedral, and is easily within walking distance of that station, Mansion House and probably Monument too. It's funny how some bits of London are completely over-served with stations. I guess this only exists as there's a mainline rail station on top of it. And because of that it's not really very memorable - just platforms and stairs. There's something a bit seventies about the colour of those tiles though.

Wikipedia entry here.

70. Lambeth North

Saturday 18th October 6.50pm

This was another one of those one-stop-from-where-I-needed-to-be stations, which I should probably stop going to in the dark as they're surprisingly hard to find. I was just about to give up hope when I literally realised I was standing outside it - those ox-blood red tiles are less distinctive in the dark, and it there's an underground sign projecting from the building I failed to see it!

It was really quiet so I shared the lift down to the platform with one man and his dog. I'm not joking. Down on the platform it's all tiled, the usual kind of station for it's period, which I feel like I take for granted and should love more as they do what they need to do really simply and practically. It's the kind of place I'd like to be my local station.

Wikipedia entry here.

69. Tower Hill

[Why oh why did I take that picture as portrait when all the others are landscape?? I'll have to go back at some point and have another go at it.]

Saturday 18th October 3.45pm

Not my favourite station this one, and I've been through it an unexpectedly high amount of times in recent years. It's just a bit tricky to get to - if you approach it from the Tower of London you go through an underpass then up a horribly steep flight of stairs, and it you approach it from the top you've go past lots of run down buildings. The station itself looks like it needs a new clean. And why on earth didn't they just call it "Tower of London" when that's exactly where it is??

Wikipedia entry here.

67.Aldgate East

Saturday 18th October 2.15pm

I was going to complain that this station appears to be old judging from the signage on the platform but only has modern entrances in two uninspiring glass offices blocks when it turns out it actually has an old above ground building right next door to the Whitechapel gallery, which I probably walked past to get to the new entrances. What a fool.

Anyway, the platform does have old tiling (which according to Wikipedia is actually completely new!) and signage on it which is nice to see, and on some of there pillars there were these smaller versions of the roundel with brass edging which were lovely (and were crying out to be taken home).

Wikipedia entry here.

65. Chancery Lane

Saturday 11th October 4.50pm

This is one of those stations that wasn't where I thought it was. If pushed I'd have said it was further south, near the river, probably where Cannon Street is, but it isn't there at all - it's along High Holborn, within walking distance and almost in sight of Holborn station, which probably explains why I've never been there before.

It has not surface buildings, just subways from either side of the road which converge on the ticket office then down escalators to the platforms. It was almost deserted when I went through it some I'm guessing that most of the millions of people who use it do so during the week. When I was there a train left the station and stopped with the end of the last carriage just beyond the end of the platform so the next train waited with the front of the first carriage just beyond the platform at the other end. If only I had a fancy camera that did a panorama I could have got a shot of two trains at the same station at the same time.

Wikipedia entry here.

64. Farringdon

Saturday 11th October 11.50am

This was my second attempt at Farringdon this year - the first attempt failed as I couldn't actually find the entrance. To be fair the place has been a massive building site in preparation for Crossrail and I did begin to wonder if it was actually shut. But I've been through it since and people have got off so I assume it's just badly signposted and I'm an idiot. So I figured that if I actually arrived at the station I'd have to be total fool to get so lost I couldn't get out.

Turns out it's a rather lovely station, and unbelievably quiet on a Saturday lunchtime. One of the exits was shut so you had to walk along a corridor with windows along one side which blazed with sun, and there's some lovely honey-coloured brickwork too. I think it might be a bit of triumph when it's finally finished, and I'm glad I had an excuse to give it another go.

Wikipedia entry here.

63. Aldgate

Tuesday 2nd October 3pm.

I liked this station as it's the eastern terminus of the Metropolitan line, which means that the west-bound trains sit on the platform ready to depart, but seem in no rush to do so. It also meant that at the time of day I travelled it was quiet and I nearly had a whole carriage to myself. Tube travel isn't meant to be that relaxing.

Wikipedia entry here.

59. Vauxhall

Tuesday 1st October, 2.45pm

I've been to Vauxhall a few times but always on foot, which is unexpected as it's a bit of a transport hub with Tube, railway and buses all converging on one place, right beside a busy road over the bridge. The Tube station is probably the least interest bit of it with no interchange and as I was with a friend I didn't really pay much attention to it as we walked through it.

Wikipedia entry here.

58. Mansion House

Saturday 20th September 11.45am

This is one of those stations in a part of the city that seems a bit overrun with stations, but I guess those business types don't like to walk too far to the office. The beauty of those business stations is that they're absolutely deserted at weekends and I was the only person on the platform waiting for the train. The platform had lots of pillars along it which would have been great for a game of hide-and-seek.

It's also got one of those labyrinth artworks. I've not really understood or being paying attention to them. Apparently there's on at every station and people are collecting the whole set. If only I'd known about them when I started this nonsense I might have done the same, but I'm not going back to the beginning now!

Wikipedia entry here.

57. Westminster

Saturday 20th September 11.00am

I do like these roundels that stand up on their own, it's nice to see them in three dimensions, and I guess there's no other way of doing it with all the glass (although I did see one in Hammersmith which was on the glass, but I forgot to photograph it).

So this is one of those stations on the fancy Jubilee line, all concrete, steel and glass. But I was coming into it on the District line and I didn't know if there was still some remnants of an old station for that line. But no, the whole this has been rebuilt although you don't get the scale of it from this line, just coming up one flight of stairs to the ticket hall and out onto the street. Rather disappointingly there isn't a big bold building above ground, just lots of entrances that give you no idea of what lies beneath.

Wikipedia entry here.