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Yearly Archives: 2012

14. The north entrance to Blackfriars

19 April 2012
Architecture, Circle line, District line, Numbers 1-25, Zone 1
2 Comments

A big hand for this entranceThere are pedants, and I’m usually one of them, who would disqualify this splendid building on account of it also being an entrance to a mainline railway station. But there are also pragmatists, and I’d like to think of myself as one, who would counter that this is very much part of the Underground.

It is the main point of access to the District and Circle lines north of the Thames at Blackfriars; indeed it is the only point of access to the Underground in the Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill area. And while it does double as an entrance to platforms for the Thameslink line, it fastens its colours truly to the mast with a distinctive, if flawed, bit of signage:

Oh dearScott has moaned about this misguided lozenge, and he’s right to. Why? Why decorate a hugely-convincing, impressively-realised, sparkling new station front with something so out-of-place and out-of-keeping with London Underground house style? Either do it properly or don’t bother.

Lozenge aside, the north entrance to Blackfriars commands the sort of shiny respect and bristling fascination that all the stations on the Jubilee line extension must have enjoyed on their opening in 1999. The whole complex is part of the vast Thameslink upgrade programme, which has also resulted in Blackfriars gaining a sister entrance on the south side of the river – something long overdue, but more of which another time.

It’s the north entrance I’m celebrating here, and not just its exterior. Because what in heaven’s name is this?

Kind of blueSomething really rather wonderful, that’s what.

You - tube?Disregarding the fact it doesn’t seem to have picked up my reflection, thereby making my self-esteem even more transparent than usual, what you have here is an enormous ventilation duct masquerading as a minor tourist attraction. Or vice versa.

While I was there I saw a number of people pausing to admire this shimmering blue turret, one or two of them even touching it to as if they couldn’t believe it was real.

Perhaps the way it seems so out of place makes it so appealing and therefore to be admired, applauded and, if necessary, stroked.

All of which reactions are wholly justified and fitting for a station that is by any measure a whole lot better than it once was.

Sign of old timesAnd it’s about to get even better.

13. The mosaics at Leytonstone

15 April 2012
Central line, Designs, Numbers 1-25, Zone 3, Zone 4
1 Comment

A spot of dustingWaltham Forest borough council commissioned these mosaics to mark the centenary of Alfred Hitchcock’s birth. The director was born in Leytonstone in 1899; each design commemorates a memorable moment from his cinematic career.

Bad hair dayThey were created by the Greenwich Mural Workshop and unveiled in 2001.

Leytonstone station is reached from either the western or eastern end of a long subway, along which are positioned the mosaics. It means you only get to see half the designs on your way to or from the platforms – that’s if you’re bothering to look at all:

Eastern entranceNobody was paying them any notice while I was there. In fact, me taking photographs of the mosaics was attracting more attention than the mosaics themselves. It’s a shame when something so intriguing becomes so familiar as to be almost invisible.

Captions provide information on which film is represented by which design, which is useful for those less familiar depictions:

SaboteurThere are 17 in total, 14 showing scenes from films, three symbolising moments in Hitchcock’s career. If you’re not rushing to or from a train at Leytonstone, all of the designs are worth close inspection. Or for that matter, any sort of inspection at all.

Number 17

12. The viaduct at Mill Hill East

10 April 2012
Architecture, Northern line, Numbers 1-25, Zone 4
3 Comments

Cementing a reputationOne of London’s finest landmarks belongs to one of London’s least-used railway lines.

It represents the highest point on the Underground network above ground (almost 18 metres in height) but serves a station that is visited by close to the fewest number of passengers on the whole of the network to which it belongs.

It’s an object of awe-inducing size and unquestionable beauty, yet chances are it is rarely seen by anyone in the capital save those who live and work in the neighbourhood.

Out in any weatherThe viaduct that carries that Northern line from Finchley Central over the Dollis Brook to Mill Hill East is impossible to appreciate while inside a carriage trundling across its top.

You can pick up a sense of the structure’s accomplishments by virtue of the views across the surrounding countryside (and it is countryside, even here, in the centre of the borough of Barnet). But you need to make a five-minute journey on foot from either station to the valley floor to sample its full wonder.

The archesTo stand underneath one of its arches is a rather giddy experience. Everything is simply so… big. So fantastically, addictively, uncompromisingly big. But not big in a bombastic, ill-conceived way. This is big done with foresight, skill and style.

Thousands upon thousands of bricks curve, glide and dance in every direction. The sun throws shadows that are both scintillating and eerie, and which play out against huge bursts of illumination:

More archesThe viaduct has been in use since 1867. John Fowler is the man to thank, the genius (and for once the word is justified) who acted as chief engineer for the very first chunk of the Underground, the Metropolitan railway; the Forth railway bridge; Grosvenor Bridge, the first railway bridge over the Thames; the original stations at Liverpool Central, Manchester Central, Sheffield Victoria and St Enoch in Glasgow; and many other highlights of Victorian civil engineering.

It’s almost laughable that the paltry single stump of a track that runs apologetically from Finchley Central to Mill Hill East has been blessed with such splendour and majesty.

But that’s what makes the Underground so great: that its artistic peaks often lie among its remunerative troughs, yet both somehow continue to exist, side-by-side.

I dream my dreams away