176. Willesden Junction

Saturday June 8th 10.35am

That sign makes me cross. This station has had Underground trains going through it since 1915 but there are no Underground red roundels on either of the Underground platforms, just orange Overground ones. The Overground didn't exist until 2007 - where did all the red roundels go?! How annoying. Confusingly the Underground and Overground services are listed on the same arrivals board by the time they're scheduled to arrive and their destination, like in all train stations, but unlike all Underground stations where it just counts down the minutes to their arrival. There is no differentiation between what service they are, so unless you're used to it you don't know what's coming until it rounds the bend.

The platforms are old but the station building is mush newer, although not in any fancy or interesting way - it hardly looks much grander than a bus shelter, not helped by it's location just off a main road above the railway in what feels like a bit of a wasteland.

Wikipedia entry here.

170. Mile End

Wednesday 3rd October 4.25pm

Part of this station is an island platform with pillars in between which are benches. The benches are crying out for roundels on them, like lots of other places on the Tube but there aren't any - I walked the length of the platform hoping to find some but no, so we're left with modern metal ones which somehow feel a bit disappointing.

It has a surface building but it's really just an opening in a row of shops. It did have a pair of roundels sticking out from it, one with "underground" on it and the other with the name of the station on it. I'd have liked to get a picture of them but it didn't feel like the kind of street where you could stop and do that.

Wikipedia entry here.

169. Bethnal Green

Wednesday 3rd October 3.50pm

This has got the older yellowy tiles that you see elsewhere on the Tube and as a bonus has nice lettering above it, which proved too difficult to photograph in any useful way. The whole station is below ground, most of it probably under the crossroads you come up to. It was really quite when I was there and after months of failing to get there it felt like a bit of an anticlimax.

Wikipedia entry here.

160.Bow Road

Saturday 9th September 6pm

This is a nice little red brick station that's set back from the road so I you can't see it until you're right upon it, which is a bit confusing and was making me start to worry I was lost, especially as I'd just walked under a railway bridge that looked like it was an ideal place for an elevated station, and also a DLR station. The platform is downstairs, half in a tunnel half out.

As I walked her from Bromley-by-Bow I was reminded of the thing about Bow bells and cockneys but apparently that's a different Bow, although this is still proper East End anyway. How confusing.

Wikipedia entry here.

159. Bromley-by-Bow

Saturday 9th September 5.45pm

Another outdoor platform but this one is at ground level. The station building isn't though - it's on the bridge over the tracks, and is currently being refurbished so all you can see of the front is scaffolding, not that you could probably see much anyway as it's right next to a busy main road.

Slightly confused by the name though as I thought Bromley was in Kent.

Wikipedia entry here.

158. Parsons Green

Saturday 9th September 12.05pm

As I approached this it seemed so familiar I thought I'd been there before but I was just confusing it with Turnham Green - similar name, both near a park (green), elevated and with a bridge over the road. But not the same place at all. I like the wooden shelter on the platform.

Wikipedia entry here.

157. Putney Bridge

Saturday 9th September 11.45am

This roundel made me nearly squeal with delight - look at the red edging around the name bar, I've not seen that before! And the gap between the outer black circle and the big red ring. It's painted - enamelled? - onto metal so it's modern rather than vintage, and is therefore an exciting deviation.

As for the station itself, it's one of those elevated ones that there are quite a lot of in West London, which I'm rather fond of although I imagine if it had been wet and cold rather than sunny the exposed platforms would be a bit grim. There's stairs to ground level and a small ticket hall. I didn't pay any attention to the building as I was too busy getting lost.

Wikipedia entry here.

156. Kilburn

Saturday 10th June 10.35am

[How annoying is that sticker on the roundel? I went looking for another one but it looked like someone had been round sticking them to all of them. Hooligans.]

The station after this (Willesden Green) is below street level so you have to climb stairs to get out of it - this is elevated above the street and you climb up to it, and yet the journey between the two doesn't feel like it's going up/down a slope. It also turns out to be very close to Kilburn Park (which I've already been to), on the Bakerloo line - opposite ends of the same street basically - and which of course don't anywhere near each other on the Tube map, which is one of the weaknesses of the map, but it must feel satisfyingly like you know the area when you realise. And it's not Kentish Town, which I insist on muddling it up with.

There are also flower beds on the platform too, which seems ridiculously charming for a huge transport system, and there's a waiting room with a curved glass end to it, very much like West Hampstead which is the next station along.

Wikipedia entry here.

155. Willesden Green

Saturday 10th June 10.10am

This station made me smile as they've got flowerbeds on the platform - this part of the Jubilee line is above ground, and actually used to be a Metropolitan station so it's older. It's also got two types of roundel on the platform, although this one is really badly positioned between the benches:

Apparently there's a very rare clock on the front of the station - I looked at it and wasn't impressed. Oops.

Wikipedia entry here.

150. Hampstead

Saturday 8th April 12.00pm

I'd purposefully decided to go south from here as apparently the tiling on the platform still has its old name - Heath Street - but I couldn't spot it and only noticed it right at the end of the platform as I was on the train out! I resisted the urge to get off at the next station and head back just to take pictures of tiles - that would be silly wouldn't it?

I remember using the station years ago and found it easily on a corner although for some reason one of the entrances is permanently shut which might make it a bit of a bottleneck if it were busier. It's also the deepest tube station although you'd never actually know it!

Wikipedia entry here.

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.

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.

139. Fulham Broadway

Saturday 24th September 4.40pm

This is one of my least favourite types of station - you have to go through a shopping centre to get to it! It's been modernised and part of the platform was new concrete into which the roundels were recessed, which I've not seen anywhere else before, but I didn't get a picture of them as that part of the platform was taken up by a man and a woman arguing with policemen.

Wikipedia entry here.

138. West Kensington

Saturday 24th September 4.15pm

Another station build on a bridge that straddles the tracks with stairs down either side. A small and fairly simple station as only one line goes through it. The building itself is one of those nice pale stone - Portland? - ones, although it's hard to get a decent view of it from across a busy road.

Wikipedia entry here.

137. Turnham Green

Saturday 24th September 4.00pm

My first trips to London after leaving school were to visit friends who were at college in West London. We had to pass into this station on our way into the city, and without fail someone would exclaim, "Turnham Green with envy!" We though we were funny. We weren't.

This is one of those stations where the track is elevated so the entrance and ticket office are at ground level and you have to go upstairs to catch the train. It feels the complete wrong way round for the underground but it does mean you get a great view down the tracks and over the green itself.

Wikipedia entry here.

131. Kensington (Olympia)

Saturday 24th September 10.30am

Yes I know that's an Overground roundel but no matter how hard I looked I couldn't find an Underground one, so I assumed there isn't one, only some smart-arse put one on Wikipedia which means I'm going to have to go back for another look. Damn. It was hard enough getting to this station in the first place - Tube trains only go to it when there's something on at Olympia, which isn't very often. Aren't they planning to knock down Olympia? Or am I muddling it with Earls Court? Anyway, the station building is tiny - barely big enough to house the barriers - but there's an awful lot of platform. It feels a bit windswept.

Wikipedia entry here.