Gloucester Road (London Underground)

District Line station building

Gloucester Road is a London Underground station in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea . It is in the Travelcard tariff zone 1, at the intersection of Gloucester Road and Cromwell Road. In 2014, 11.96 million passengers used the station. The Baden-Powell House is nearby .

investment

The station is served on the one hand by the Circle Line and the District Line , which run in this area directly below the surface of the earth, and on the other hand by the Piccadilly Line , whose platforms are located in a deep tunnel.

There are two different station buildings on Cromwell Road, which were constructed for different railway companies. The older one was built in 1868 and consists of hand-made yellowish-brown bricks. It has two floors, five window arches and stone balustrades . The younger building was built in 1906 under the direction of the architect Leslie Green , who used a uniform style for the entire Piccadilly Line. Typical features are the blood-red glazed terracotta bricks, large semicircular windows on the upper floor and serrated cornices . Both buildings have been under monument protection ( Grade II ) since 1984 .

history

District / Circle Line

The station was opened on October 1, 1868 under the name Brompton (Gloucester Road) by the Metropolitan Railway (MR), the predecessor of the Metropolitan Line , as the temporary terminus of the section leading here from Paddington . On December 24 of the same year, the MR extended its tracks to South Kensington , where they met the first section of the Metropolitan District Railway (MDR, predecessor of the District Line). Gloucester Road station received four tracks over which a glazed elliptical iron roof spanned. At the eastern end, a brick and arched station building was built. At the beginning, MR let trains run over the tracks of both companies.

Since the 1840s, the development of Belgravia had gradually expanded towards the west, but at the time the route was built, there were mostly kitchen gardens in the vicinity of the station . The construction of the underground led the landowners to extend Cromwell Road westward, and the opening of the station sparked a housing boom.

Original and current track plan

The MDR opened on April 12, 1869, a southwest extending extension from Gloucester Road to West Brompton . At that time there was no intermediate station - Earl's Court did not open until 1871 - and a shuttle train initially ran between the two stations. On August 1, 1870, the MDR took the additional track between Gloucester Road and South Kensington into operation and the trains ran continuously to West Brompton. Since 1949, the Circle Line has been considered a separate line, while the Metropolitan Line has been withdrawn.

A renovation took place in the 1970s. The eastbound platform of the Circle Line was shut down and the track systems were changed so that the westbound track of the Circle Line could be removed and the island platform widened. To the east, both the Circle Line and the District Line stop on the north side of the island platform. The disused platform is used for art installations as part of the Art on the Underground cultural program , which are often placed in the recesses of the brick retaining wall. In the 1990s, a mezzanine with shops and apartments was built above the District and Circle tracks.

Piccadilly Line

Station building of the Piccadilly Line

At the turn of the century, the southern part of the ring route was congested. For this reason, the MDR planned to build tunnels for express trains between Gloucester Road and Mansion House . They should run 18 to 21 meters below the existing tracks, with only one stop at Charing Cross . In 1897 parliament gave its approval, but construction work was not carried out. In 1898, the MDR took over the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway (B & PCR), which planned a subway between South Kensington and Piccadilly Circus . Furthermore, there was no construction activity.

After the takeover of MDR by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL) in 1902, the various tunnel projects were merged. The Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway (now Piccadilly Line), a subsidiary of UERL, opened new tunnel platforms on the Hammersmith - Finsbury Park route on December 15, 1906 . In 1907 the station was given its current name. The tunnel platforms were closed from August 30, 1987 to May 21, 1989 in order to be able to carry out extensive renovation and reconstruction work.

Web links

Commons : Gloucester Road (London Underground) - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ COUNTS - 2014 - annual entries & exits. (PDF, 44 kB) (No longer available online.) Transport for London, 2015, archived from the original on February 21, 2016 ; accessed on December 29, 2017 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2
↑ Gloucester Road Underground station. In: National heritage list of England. National Heritage, accessed February 1, 2013 .
^ District Line. Clive's Underground Line Guides, accessed February 1, 2013 .
^ Mike Horne: The District Line . Capital Transport, London 2006, ISBN 1-85414-292-5 , pp. 8 .
^ Southern Kensington in Retrospect . In: Hermione Hobhouse (ed.): Survey of London: volume 42: Kensington Square to Earl's Court . English Heritage, London 1986, p. 395-413 .
^ Horne: The District Line. P. 9.
^ Horne: The District Line. P. 11.
^ Douglas Rose: The London Underground, A Diagramatic History . Capital Transport, London 1999, ISBN 1-85414-219-4 .
^ Horne: The District Line. P. 95.
^ Anthony Badsey-Ellis: London's Lost Tube Schemes . Capital Transport, London 2005, ISBN 1-85414-293-3 , pp. 70-71 .
^ Badsey-Ellis: London's Lost Tube Schemes. P. 85.
↑ Piccadilly Line. Clive's Underground Line Guides, accessed February 1, 2013 .