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.

68. Bermondsey

Saturday 18th October 2.45pm

This is another one of those stations that seems too modern for the area it serves - it's not even in the fancy bit of Bermondsey where the White Cube is, just on an ordinary street with lots of housing. It's a deceptive station - you get out of the train and it's got those glass barriers all the way along the platform so it feels quite cramped and dingy, but then you leave the platform and it suddenly gets very light at the bottom of the escalators. They're only average height so you can see how close to the surface the tunnel actually is, and above the escalators is a huge glass roof through which streams loads of light, even on a grey day. It really is quite lovely.

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.

66. Whitechapel

Saturday 18th October, 12.10pm

Another station I doubt I could have found on the map. I knew it was in the East End but it turns out my idea of the East End and the actual East End are very different!

It's also another station I ended up getting lost in thanks to Crossrail - it's going to be a stop on that line (which seems unlikely and makes me think it's punching above its weight) - so there's building works going on. To exit you had to cross from the eastbound platform to the westbound platform, and the exit was at one end, but it's not obviously signposted and I ended up wandering back to where I came from like a fool. I liked the way the platforms were open to the air though.

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.

62. Stockwell

Wednesday 2nd October 9.10am

This is another one of those stations that was one stop away from where I needed to be, although when you get out of the centre of London they get further apart and this was a good twenty minutes walk. The Station itself is initially quite disappointing, a very boxy thing in chocolate brown brick, but actually it's got something about it which I quite like.

It's the station where the Brazilian electrician was mistaken for a terrorist suspect and shot in 2005, a tragic event which inspired a Pet Shop Boys song called We're all Criminals now which I ended up singing to myself for the rest of the day.

Wikipedia entry here.

61. Kennington

Tuesday 1st October 11pm.

The first thing that strikes me about that picture is the wooden frame around the name, which looks like the kind of thing my Dad would have knocked up out of bits of wood he had lying around but which isn't just restricted to one roundel or indeed one station - so far I've also seen it at Oval, which is the next stop, and St. James's Park, which is on a completely different line, so it must be a real thing although it hardly sees that stylish.

The rest of the station is as you'd expect it: lots of tiling, and a lift to the ticket office level. It's also situated on a corner, which is ideal for confusing you if you don't know the area or where you're going.

Wikipedia entry here.

60. North Greenwich

Tuesday 1st October 10.45pm

I actually went through this station last summer but had been drinking and forgot. This time round I had my wits about me, which you need anyway after coming out of a gig at the O2. It's another of those huge, spacious Jubilee line stations although this one seems less spacious quite quickly when you get underground, on a funny mezzanine level between the station and the platforms. Down on the platforms there are big columns covered in blue mosaic tiles, which you can see in the picture, which is an unusual splash of colour as the rest of the Jubilee line stations are almost exclusively concrete and metal.

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.