81. Catching the last train home

31 January 2013
Northern line, Numbers 76-100, Sensations, Sounds
4 Comments

I’ve always thought there’s something special about the last Underground train of the night. There’s a very particular atmosphere on board. An unspoken camaraderie exists among passengers, you get a more relaxed and unselfconscious ambience than at other times, plus there’s a reassuring sense of the day being done and of being almost home, where sleep beckons.

It’s hard to capture the flavour of this atmosphere in words, so here’s – drum roll! – an audio presentation of what happened recently when I took the last Northern line train of the night from Embankment to West Finchley.

Along the way I encounter British teens attempting to impress American girls, a couple having a polite argument, someone asleep on a platform, and – what are the chances? – three men discussing disused stations.

Camden Town, my Camden Town

80. The ticket hall at Loughton

28 January 2013
Architecture, Central line, Numbers 76-100, Zone 6
2 Comments

Through a glass darklyWho says Essex can’t do style?

It may sit in one corner of a thumpingly charmless concreted cul-de-sac of a car park, with an enormous branch of Sainsbury’s eyeing it threateningly across legions of preeningly-customised vehicles. And it may have to put up with neighbours the likes of a flower shop called, with devastating imagination, The Flower Stop, and a barber’s called, fatalistically, Homme Fatal.

And it may not look in the best of shape, with peeling paint and grimy walls and a sorrowful sense of clinging to its own self-worth in lieu of anyone else extending it much care or attention.

But Loughton station nevertheless defies the broad brushes of ridicule slapped over the surface of its county’s reputation to remain one of the Underground’s noblest of suburban outposts.

Three gracesBrick, concrete and glass: the holy trinity of Underground architecture.

Or, if you’re not of an ecclesiastical bent, the three graces. The three coins in the most fulsome of public transport fountains. The Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka in the constellation of London conurbations. The Holland-Dozier-Holland of…

OK, OK. Just three damn good things, used in a damn good way. Like here at Loughton, in the Grade II-listed ticket hall designed by John Murray Easton, opened just 12 days before Hitler invaded western Europe:

Three: the magic numberEaston was pencilled in to redesign all the stations on the Central line extension (previously the London & North Eastern Railway) from Woodford to Ongar. This is the only one he managed to see built, thanks to the Third Reich going on manoeuvres. It’s a massive shame, as the rest of this stretch of the line is decidedly underwhelming by comparison (it gets better – much better – back in zone 4).

Once again I wonder what railway users of the 1940s made of such grand architecture in such galling times.

I like to think they took to it instantly and enjoyed it as much as I do today, the magnificent arched window crouching above the entrance making you feel like you’re walking into some kind of box of delights (which you are).

Instead it probably got best-known as a place that provided a rich resource of nooks and shadows to trade gammon and cammy-knickers.

Much like present-day Essex*.

Postscript: looking back through photos I took of Loughton station in 2008, I notice the flower shop used to be called Pot a Fleurs – ah, such sweet pretension! – while the barber’s went by the rather dowdy name of Sideburns. And they ditched that for Homme Fatal?!

Turn Your Head and Coif*SATIRE.

79. The exterior of Tooting Broadway

26 January 2013
Architecture, Northern line, Numbers 76-100, Zone 3
3 Comments

My kind of BroadwaySubject of one of the saddest songs ever written about the Underground, Tooting Broadway station is a location ripe for emotional statements. So here’s one. It is a thrillingly modernist smear across an otherwise unremarkable palette of suburban London. Judge it by colour, shape, size or purpose, it’s everything the surrounding area is not.

The building, completed in 1926, is bold and stylish, blessed with both grand gestures and subtle delights. In the former category belongs the enormous curved facade, built like so many of Charles Holden’s creations out of his beloved concrete, and looking dapper in its neatly-lined, nicely-hued finery:

Holden his ownIn the other category sit the illuminations that usefully pick out some of the building’s features during the day, but really come into their own at night, when the place turns the charm up even further and poses as a beautiful glittering palace. Yes, the lights are always bright on Broadway.

Broadway lightsA member of the German royal family stands guard by the entrance. He turned up a good 15 years before the station did, having just had his nine years interloping on the British throne curtailed through death. You might remember him from such titles as First Emperor of India and the Man Who Brought You The Edwardian Era:

Saxe-Coburg and Gotha not picturedI’m uneasy about royals having anything to do with the Underground. The two institutions are mutually exclusive. One values splendid isolation; the other, glorious diversity. Whenever a royal is shoved on to the Underground for some official opening or other, they look desperately discomfited or unhappy. The same goes for all the commoners playing host. Better to keep these two worlds well apart.

I know the statue predates the Northern line’s arrival, but I’m far more comfortable associating  Tooting Broadway with Patrick Fitzgerald‘s “John of Arc” than Edward VII.

(PS: Here’s a fine, five-minute snapshot of a day in the life of the station, minus all weeping/sleeping songwriters.)