93. Chalk Farm

Friday 17th July 6.20pm

I've actually been through this station a couple of times but not since I started counting. I always find it a bit weird how you go down a short flight of stair to the bit where you get the lift from - it's a long station so I wonder why there wasn't room to put them on the same level?

There's some nice green tiling around the ticket hall and down on the platform the name is spelt out in tiles, which is always nice to see:

Wikipedia entry here.

92. Belsize Park

Friday 17th July 6.00pm

I was going to save this until I happened to be at a gig at the Roundhouse but that's looking increasingly unlikely, and as I had time to tick off a couple of stations near King's Cross I figured I might as well just do it anyway.

I'd been intrigued by it since I read a novel about a murder that takes places on the stairs of the station. It even included a map:

I promised myself when I went I'd look and see if it was the same, but of course as I got off the train I couldn't remember, although looking at it now I realise it's unchanged. I wish I'd arrived at the station on foot so I could have taken the steps to platform level, but there are 219 of them so there was no way I was doing it the other way round!

And the station? Oh it was your usual Northern line station of that period - low building covered in those lovely ox-blood red tiles, tiled platforms. What surprised me was how busy it was - I expected very few people to get off but tons did.

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.