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Northern line

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

1. The archer at East Finchley

26 February 2012
Northern line, Numbers 1-25, Objects, Zone 3
2 Comments

The archer at East Finchey stationThere’s no great significance in choosing this to begin with. Proximity is, I suppose, the main reason. East Finchley station is a couple of stops southbound from where I live. I travel through nearly every day and invariably catch a glimpse of the archer, though it’s not best seen from a passing train. To fully appreciate its character and design you need to leave East Finchley station, turn around and look up, just above the main entrance.

Have bow, will travelIt’s the work of the sculptor Eric Aumonier (1899-1974) and is positioned so that you only see it on entering the station – in other words, on beginning your journey. In another non-coincidental touch, the implied trajectory of the archer’s arrow traces that of the line itself, about to dive underground into what was for a time the longest tunnel in the world: a little over 17 miles to Morden.

The sculpture is now more than 70 years old. It was unveiled on 22 July 1940, a moment in history when appreciation of public transport design was assuredly not high up in the nation’s consciousness. Yet it must have caught the eye and hopefully roused the soul. As London Transport’s staff journal said at the time: “It is more than a decorative device; it is powerful symbolism.”

It still is. It points the way down the line to the rest of the network and to London itself: home of some of Aumonier’s most famous creations, including similarly Art Deco sculptures inside the old Daily Express building, and a relief of the “South Wind” on the exterior of London Underground’s head office itself (of which more anon).

To the end of the lineBrilliantly sited, fantastically realised, impishly styled and enduringly relevant, the archer sums up pretty much everything worth celebrating about the Underground.

Hmm. On reflection there is an awful amount of significance to picking this as the first of the 150.