148. Shepherd's Bush

Saturday 22nd October 10.00am

Surely everyone knows that when you lay tiles (and indeed brickwork) you should stagger the tiles to avoid the cross-shaped joint you can see above and below the name. Shocking workmanship.

The station was rebuilt in 2008, at the same time as the enormous Westfield shopping centre was opened beside it. It would be hard to find a more vapid building - it's literally a glass box over the top of the escalators, down to corridors and platforms that seem unchanged (apart from the bad tiling).

Wikipedia entry here.

147. Latimer Road

Saturday 22nd October 9.40am

I like the painted boards the roundel is mounted on.

This is one of those stations that is peculiar to this part of west London where the track is actually elevated so the entrance is at ground level with a small ticket hall and stairs up to rather windswept platforms. These are becoming a personal favourite, despite the fact that they're the very antithesis of the undergound!

Wikipedia entry here.

That was the final station I needed to visit to tick off every single station on the Circle line. Sooner or later I was going to complete a whole line but I'm surprised to find it was the Circle first, because although it's central it's not that central - it goes round the centre, not through it, and when do I ever need to be around Shepherd's Bush! I was fully expecting to complete the Victoria line first as it's the shortest, but the stations at the northern end of it are proving elusive. Must try harder.

146. Newbury Park

Saturday 22nd October 8.30am

This station has got a grade II listed bus shelter in front of it - a concrete arch with a copper roof which looks amazing in pictures. But the reality doesn't have dramatic lighting or filters, and is filled with people hanging around waiting for buses. It's also a bit smaller than the pictures suggest, so try as I might I couldn't even get a rubbish picture of it. Instead I got a picture of a big roundel on a pole outside the station:

Wikipedia entry here.

145. Finchley Road

Wednesday 12th October 3.45pm

This is another one of those stations on a corner in a parade of shops so you don't notice anything about the building as you stumble across it and get sucked down into it.

Wikipedia entry here.

144. West Hampstead

Wednesday 12th October 3.30pm

What I liked most about this station was the waiting room with curved windows, which were also ridiculously clean:

Wikipedia entry here.

143. Canning Town

Wednesday 12th October 12.25pm

I like the way the roundel has been given a mohican to scare away the pigeons. It wasn't just this sign - it was all of them. I've not seen that anywhere else before, and there are plenty of other outdoor stations, so I guess this one is unusually popular with pigeons.

The station is very long and thing, squeezed in beside a main road and under a flyover, it's really just a long glass box. But sadly it's not as glamorous as that sounds.

Wikipedia entry here.

142. West Ham

Wednesday 12th October 12.05pm

It's nice to see some good honest brickwork on a modern station instead of concrete and steel, and it's all the more surprising as this is a Jubilee line station and the whole line is quite literally built of concrete and steel. There's the familiar large open spaces inside the building too, and I was so busy enjoying them that I completely missed the exit.

Wikipedia entry here.

141. Southgate

Saturday 1st October 6.05pm

There are some brilliant pictures of this station lit up at night looking like a spaceship and that's how I wanted to see it, but as my 'rules' more of less dictate me arriving or departing on foot, which would mean stumbling around suburbia in the dark, I've avoided it. I just remember getting lost after leaving Kennington station late one evening and that's enough to put me off.

It looks less impressive in the daylight as it's on a roundabout and therefore surrounded by cars:

It is another lovely circular building though:

And I've not seen anything like this before:

The escalators down to the platform have some lovely up-lighters between them but it was too busy to get a good picture of them.

It was nice to see some old signage on the platform:

Wikipedia entry here.

140. Oakwood

Saturday 1st October 5.40pm

This end of the Piccadilly line has been high on my list to visit as there's some very interesting stations here, and as it's not far from King's Cross (my 'home' station) it really ought not to have taken so long. I got there in the end.

The station building itself is a huge box, although as always they're hard to photograph than books and the internet suggest, partly because I'm focused on my onward journey and forget. So here's a view of the station from the platform:

And here are two views from inside which give a better idea of the scale of it:

I imagine that when there's nobody there and the building is flooded with light that it's really quite beautiful.

It was also my first station in zone 5, which I'll obviously be spending a lot more time in as this challenge continues.

Wikipedia entry here.