Oxford Circus, like many other Tube stations, began life as two separate stations: one for the Central Line (1900) by Harry Bell Measures and the other, a classic Leslie Green job, for the Bakerloo Line (1906). Unlike others though they didn’t stay separate for long as the overwhelming numbers of people wanted to use these stations forced the first rebuild in 1912 which resulted in the two stations sharing facilities, such as a ticket office, in order to maximise the available space. The station has essentially been undergoing a modernisation and expansion programme ever since. The Bakerloo and Central lines were joined by the Victoria in 1969 and the station has spread out underground to occupy the whole area underneath the intersection of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street. There are always huge crowds here and do it is hard to get a good shot of the exterior. Just for you I got up early one Christmas morning and went and took a shot. Even them I couldn’t get one entirely without people but that clear view of the Leslie Green station complete with signature tiling is about as good as it gets. Pretty much everyone who lives in London has used this station (the busiest on the network that is not connected to a mainline station) but I very strongly suspect that if you were to ask a Londoner to describe the exterior Oxford Circus Tube Station that few could do it. This is because arriving or leaving from here is always done as part of a huge crush with little time and less inclination to look around. Unfortunately I only managed to snap one of the two original stations and now need to go back (next Christmas) to capture the original Central Line station, also very impressive though now only used as an exit.
Seven Sisters
Alas the seven sisters after whom this station was named were not seven witches or seven medieval harlots of anything half so exciting. The name derives from seven elm trees which once stood nearby and now survive only as depicted on the tile work. A bit like Walthamstow, the overground station here is very well preserved and even almost outshines the Tube station. I was especially taken by a poster which asserted that, ‘we run a very frequent service from this station’: the poster didn’t say but seemed to suggest that this is something worthy of serious consideration before venturing onto the very nicely painted upper level platforms.
Tottenham Hale
I once had an office in Harlow and used to have to catch the Stansted Express from here on my infrequent and generally tiresome visits. I didn’t like Harlow and I didn’t like the office there so this station was both a mildly ominous departure point and a great relief at the end of the day. So this place inspires mixed feelings. There has been a station here since 1840, making it one of the very earliest in London. It acquired the rather fancy and once admired waiting room in the 1990s when the station was revamped to accommodate the not very express-like Stansted Express serving the rebuilt Stansted Airport. In the waiting room is a cafe bar that serves coffee of a sort. I was hoping that the word ‘Hale’ in the name of the station and the area was a reference to health, as in ‘hale and hearty’, but on investigation it turns out that, in this instance, the word ‘hale’ derives from the Old English ‘healh’, meaning nothing more than a corner of land. The tiling motif is by Edward Bawden and is called ‘Ferry across the River Lea’. You can get onto the river tow path from here for a very pleasant walk (or run) and the river is sometimes spelled Lee as well as Lea.
Blackhorse Road
Strangely enough and notwithstanding the spectacular Black Horse outside and the rather elegant one inside, the Black Horse it is all derived from turns out not to be a horse at all but a black house. There was once a clock house her called the Black House. I’m not entirely sure what a clock house was, I guess a building that displayed a clock so you could tell the time, but over time this name was corrupted to Blackhorse and so the Tube station, located on Blackhorse Road, was eventually named. The view over the Lea Valley is pretty astonishing from here and gives a sense of looking out of London altogether. I do love the horse on the platform tiles.
