Archive

Numbers 26-50

32. The miniature roundels at Gants Hill

3 July 2012
Central line, Designs, Numbers 26-50, Zone 4
2 Comments

Baby roundelLike a film camera slowly pulling back and building up for the big reveal, I am holding off from celebrating the full glory of Charles Holden’s Gants Hill for a just a bit longer.

Instead, after first concentrating on the platform clocks, I have zoomed out a little more, to bring into view the dainty Underground logos that sporadically line the walls of the station’s concourse:

Vaulting ambitionlgnore, if you can, the plastic bag lying on the floor and focus your gaze on those tiny Underground symbols embedded within the tiles on each of the pillars. They deserve their own moment of glory. For I imagine they are barely glimpsed, at least knowingly, and let alone acknowledged.

Granted, these petite designs can’t really complete with what else is going on by way of architecture inside Gants Hill (of which more another time). Yet in their own way they are discreetly charming and rather becoming: attributes to which all the very finest parts of the Underground successfully aspire.

They’re also cute, in a statutory kind of way. Apologies if that sounds vaguely perverse. But I do love Gants Hill station. It’s the Muscovite modernist monolith that keeps on giving.

Back, further back...

31. The platforms at Rayners Lane

1 July 2012
Metropolitan line, Numbers 26-50, Piccadilly line, Sensations, Zone 5
2 Comments

Light fantasticI’ve talked before of how some Underground stations, like all of us from time to time, feel better in the dark.

There are also parts of the network that are most flattered by light, specifically the arc of the sun. Obviously these stations are above ground, but they’re not always obviously candidates for celebration.

For much of the time, the most that can be said to commend the platforms at Rayners Lane are the flower beds:

Insert your own "blooming" pun hereBut when the sun starts to set, there’s a clear sky, and you’re facing westbound, something rather beautiful happens.

Let the sun sign inThe platforms are ideally aligned for what astronomers would call an “event”, though in this instance, it’s the juxtaposition of light and metal rather than any celestial bodies. An occasional passing human body won’t diminish the effect, mind:

The long day closesOther stations undoubtedly play host to similar solar-kissed moments. But Rayners Lane is the most extreme, and the most magical, I’ve so far experienced.

Valediction

30. The stained glass at Uxbridge

23 June 2012
Designs, Metropolitan line, Numbers 26-50, Piccadilly line, Zone 6
6 Comments

Colour me smittenI think this might be the only station on the Underground that has stained glass (though I’m more than happy to be proved wrong).

The three panels sit above the exit and are only visible to people leaving the station: a fitting location for what is essentially a translucent multi-coloured equivalent of a “Welcome to Uxbridge” slogan:

Which window shall we go through today?They were created by the Hungarian artist Ervin Bossányi, who emigrated to the UK in 1934: just four years before Uxbridge station was rebuilt in its present form to a design by Charles Holden.

During a hugely successful career in this country Bossányi would make stained glass for, among others, the University of London, the Victoria and Albert Museum and York Minster.

But the three designs he produced for Holden must count statistically as his most viewed – and perhaps simultaneously, like Oliver Hill’s bus station at Newbury Park and Eric Aumonier’s archer at East Finchley, his most under-appreciated, by virtue of their home being not an imperious seat of learning or popular tourist attraction but an ordinary railway terminus.

Of course I would argue that Uxbridge is anything but ordinary, and I’ll return to rave about some of its other stunning features another time.

For now I’ll merely sing the praises of this trio of handsome gems, which depict, from left to right: the arms of the old Middlesex County Council, an institution abolished by Tory minister Keith Joseph in the early 1960s; the arms of the Basset family, esteemed local landowners of centuries’ standing; and a historic emblem of Buckinghamshire.

And were there ever need for a more contemporary representation, may I suggest something to do with Press Gang, which was filmed in Uxbridge and which remains the finest children’s TV drama series ever made.