Highgate Underground Station
Highgate is a London Underground station in the London Borough of Haringey . It is in the Travelcard tariff zone 3 on Archway Road. In 2013, 4.64 million passengers used this station served by the Northern Line .
investment
About three hundred meters to the west, the route comes to the surface. The tunnel leads via Bank to Morden and with a length of 17 miles is the longest of the London Underground - for a few years it was even the longest in the world. Halfway to East Finchley Station is the Highgate workshop.
The station system that exists today dates from the 1930s and was created as part of the Northern Heigts project. But there had been an above-ground train station here for more than seventy years , which was shut down a few years after the subway opened.
history
Highgate station was built on August 22, 1867 by the Edgware, Highgate and London Railway (EH&LR) together with the single-track route Finsbury Park - Edgware . In July 1867, just before opening, the larger Great Northern Railway (GNR) took over EH&LR. Because of the hilly terrain, Highgate station was built in a deep cut. There were short tunnels at both ends of the station.
The Muswell Hill Railway (MHR) built a short branch line from Highgate via Muswell Hill to Alexandra Palace and put it into operation on May 22, 1872. The line branched north of the station from the existing GNR line and led in a large arc around the Park Highgate Wood. In 1911 the GNR took over the MHR. With the Railways Act 1921 , all railway companies in the country were combined into four large companies, the GNR in 1923 in the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER).
As part of the “Northern Heights” project, London Underground extended the Northern Line tunnel to Highgate, the platforms being located 21 meters below the LNER station. At the exit of the tunnel, the underground line was linked with the LNER tracks in the direction of East Finchley. Operations on the new route began on July 3, 1939; However, the Highgate underground station did not open until a year and a half later, on January 19, 1941.
Because of the Second World War , architect Charles Holden was unable to complete the station building as planned. The electrification work on the LNER routes Finsbury Park - East Finchley and Highgate - Alexandra Palace was well advanced by the start of the war, but then had to be stopped. The LNER trains ran to East Finchley until March 2, 1941, then only between Finsbury Park and Alexandra Palace.
During the war, the station was used as an air raid shelter during bombing raids. American politician and presenter Jerry Springer was born in one of these attacks in the subway station.
After the war, the maintenance and repair of damage was a top priority. The meager funds flowed into the more urgent extensions of the Central Line to West Ruislip , Epping and Hainault . The unfinished elements of the Northern Heights project were finally dropped in 1950.
After a temporary shutdown between October 1951 and January 1952, British Rail , the successor to the LNER, finally ceased passenger services between Finsbury Park and Alexandra Palace on July 3, 1954. Until 1970, London Underground occasionally used the route for entry and exit trips to the Highgate workshop. The tracks were removed in 1971. The platforms of the former train station have been preserved, but are partly overgrown. A station building from GNR times serves as a residential building.
Web links
- Photo of the entrance to the train station (1935)
- Photo of the entrance to the subway at Shepherd's Hill (1955)
- Photo of the entrance to the subway on New Archway Road
- More photos of the disused train station
Individual evidence
- ↑ 2013 annual entries and exits. (Excel, 228 kB) Transport for London, 2014, accessed on July 27, 2014 (English).
- ↑ a b c d Northern Line. Clive's Underground Line Guides, accessed January 17, 2013 .
| Previous station | Transport for London | Next station |
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| East Finchley |
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Archway |
Coordinates: 51 ° 34 ′ 39.3 " N , 0 ° 8 ′ 45.4" W.