Brompton Road (London Underground)
Brompton Road is a closed underground station on the London Underground . It was located between Knightsbridge and South Kensington stations on the Piccadilly Line . After being closed in 1934, the station served as a secret military command center during World War II . In 2014, the UK Department of Defense , the owner, sold the facility.
history
The station opened on December 15, 1906, as part of the first section of the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway (GNP & BR, now Piccadilly Line) between Finsbury Park and Barons Court . Although it was located near the Brompton Oratory and the Victoria and Albert Museum , the number of passengers was low, which is why numerous trains passed the station without stopping as early as October 1909. From May 4 to October 4, 1926, it was temporarily closed due to a general strike, then on Sundays until January 2, 1927. To save money, two of the four elevators were removed and the ticket office remained unoccupied. The final closure took place on July 29, 1934, as the catchment area had become markedly smaller due to the commissioning of an escalator in the neighboring Knightsbridge station.
The platforms were separated from the tracks by installing walls. The War Office , which acquired the facility in 1938 for £ 24,000 , set up offices and the London Air Defense Control Center here. Since then, both the above ground and parts of the underground premises have been owned by the Ministry of Defense. At the end of one of the platforms, a projection surface was painted on the wall, on which both information and (presumably) propaganda films for the people working there could be shown. Like the other station buildings of GNP & BR, the one on Brompton Road was designed by Leslie Green , with the typical glazed terracotta bricks and the large semicircular windows on the first floor. The main facade had to give way to a street widening in 1972, while the side facade at Cottage Place was retained.
On February 28, 2014, the Ministry of Defense sold the station to the Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash for £ 53 million . The building is to be converted for residential purposes.
See also
literature
- JE Connor: London's disused Underground stations . Capital Transport, London 2001, ISBN 1-85414-250-X , pp. 44-50 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ London's Brompton Road Tube station sold for £ 53m. BBC News , February 28, 2014, accessed March 1, 2014 .
Web links
- Underground History - Brompton Road Underground Station
- Subterranea Britannica: Brompton Road
- Photo of the station building shortly after the opening
| Previous station | Transport for London | Next station |
|---|---|---|
| South Kensington |
|
Knightsbridge |
Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 49 ″ N , 0 ° 10 ′ 8 ″ W.