Roundel Round We Go

One of largest and the most complicated stations in London, Tottenham Court Road is the interchange between the Central and Northern lines of the London Underground, and the Elizabeth line. The station’s history is one of constant attempts to keep pace with increasing congestion, culminating in the spectacular reconstruction which commenced in 2009 as part of the Crossrail project. Tottenham Court Road may not have finished expanding yet, with provision made within the station’s passageways...

We explore Woodside Park, a station which has retained many of its picturesque historic details, and talk to Luke Agbaimoni, aka Tubemapper, renowned photographer of the London Underground. Woodside Park was opened by the Great Northern Railway in 1872, and became part of the Northern Line in 1940. We've covered the history of this section of railway in full detail in episode 004 - Totteridge and Whetstone. Around Woodside Park we discover the disputed etymology of Tally Ho Corner, and the...

For centuries an isolated village, Northolt's first station opened in 1907 as part of the Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway, an ambitious project to build a new line from London to the Midlands. London Underground's New Works Programme saw the route transformed into part of the Central line. Today, another ambitious project to build a new railway from London to the Midlands is underway, with HS2 tunnelling directly under Northolt and building a ventilation shaft near the...

Our first south London station, Southfields is on London Underground's District Line - but was for many years operated by British Rail, despite none of their trains ever stopping there. We explore how that came about through classic Victorian railway construction shenanigans; the mainline trains which still use Southfields today; and plans for Crossrail 2 to take over the line. Tennis fans will know Southfields as the closest station to the Wimbledon grounds, so Emily went on a tour to...

The station with more platforms than any other on the Underground gets a bumper episode with special guest Geoff Marshall. Baker Street has one of the most fascinating and complex stories of any station on the Underground. It was the flagship station of the Metropolitan Railway, its growth driven by their determination to both carry commuters more efficiently and prove they were a real mainline railway company. Above the platforms the Met built their headquarters decorated with carvings of...

"Rickmansworth, an ancient township of narrow streets, lies most picturesquely in its valley, where a sharp tongue of Hertfordshire thrusts itself down between Middlesex and Bucks," according to the Metroland brochure produced by the Metropolitan Railway in 1932 to promote the idea of moving out of London to rural areas served by the company's trains. In this episode we look at how the Met came to be extended to Rickmansworth and beyond, and the suburbanisation that it caused. We also...

One of the original Central London Railway stations opened in 1900, Queensway retains much of its turn-of-the-century appearance today. In this episode we look in depth at the engineering, construction and operation of the Central London Railway, including its troublesome electric locomotives and their replacement with cutting edge multiple unit trains that pioneered the technology still used throughout London Underground today. A full list of references for all the sources used for this...

Best known for having the longest escalators on the London Underground (and indeed the whole UK), and a very wide southbound platform - both products of the station's 1990s reconstruction. Angel was the terminus of the City and South London Railway between 1901 and 1907, was upgraded in the 1920s, then entered a long period of decay culminating in the decrepit state beautifully depicted in "Heart of the Angel", the 1989 BBC documentary on the station by Molly Dineen. The 1990s rebuild...

Renowned for its fantastically complex junction, Camden Town station is where the Charing Cross, Bank, Edgware and High Barnet branches of the Northern line come together. Opened in 1907 on the Hampstead Tube, the famous junction was added in 1924 to integrate the City and South London Railway into what is now the Northern Line. Ongoing efforts to increase capacity have lead to recent proposals for the Northern line to be split apart again, requiring another rebuild at Camden. The area...

Gunnersbury is a station with a glorious past, once served by five different railway companies, and a spectacular unrealised future on a 1919 predecessor of Crossrail. It is also the only station on the London Underground to have been struck by a tornado! Once home to the Rothschild family, part of nearby Gunnersbury Park is now the Kensington Cemetery, including a memorial to the 1940 massacre of Polish soldiers by the Soviet Union at Katyn. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter...

When it opened in 1887 on an extension of the Metropolitan Railway, Northwood was out in the open countryside. Housing was quickly built around the station by Frank Murray Maxwell Hallowell Carew, a man with a name and life worthy of an adventure novel - it turns out developing Northwood was probably the least interesting thing he ever did. The Metropolitan Railway themselves lead later housing developments around their stations, creating the suburbs still known as Metroland, which we...

Opened by the Eastern Counties Railway in 1856, the London Underground's Central line was extended through Leytonstone in 1947 under the expansion of the network known as the New Works Programme. Today the entrance to the station is perhaps best know for its mosaics depicting the life and films of Alfred Hitchcock. We've been given the full story of the mosaics and their creation by the artists who made them at the Greenwich Mural Workshop. Leytonstone was also the closest station to the...

Best known as the station for visitors to the Victoria and Albert, Natural History and Science museums, South Kensington was the focus of a bitter rivalry between the Metropolitan and District railway companies culminating in a tug of war between two trains. The station has also been the subject of many uncompleted plans including the deep level District line, numerous proposals for railways on the route of what's now the pedestrian subway to the museums, and commercial redevelopments of the...

Built on an extension of the world's second underground railway (the Metropolitan and St John's Wood Railway), Finchley Road has been at the centre of a struggle for track capacity that has seen it served by the Metropolitan, Bakerloo and Jubilee lines. There was even a little-known 1920s plan to for a deep-level Metropolitan line bypass the station altogether! In this episode we'll also look at Swiss Cottage, Marlborough Road and Lords, the three Metropolitan line stations between Finchley...

In this episode, we're joined by Daniel Fox of the Signals to Danger podcast to discuss the tragic Harrow and Wealdstone rail disaster of 1952. We'll also examine the claim that Harrow and Wealdstone is the oldest station on the London Underground, discover why the Bakerloo now terminates here instead of stretching all the way to Watford, and explore the lost branchline to Stanmore Village. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @roundelroundpod, or email us at...

A quaint country station, but in zone six and with a tube train into town every few minutes, Theydon Bois is the penultimate stop at the eastern end of the Central line. We look at how the London Underground came to serve this rural outpost, a village which to this day remains without streetlighting! (and there's an annual Donkey Derby!) Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @roundelroundpod, or email us at roundelroundpod@gmail.com References - owing to the number of sources referenced for...

Boston Manor is considered one of architect Charles Holden's masterpieces, so in this episode we discuss his career in tube station design. At Boston Manor, Holden created a station with an elegant tower soaring above the flat roof - which upon visiting the station we discovered looks more impressive in photographs than reality! We also look at the history of the station dating back to its origin on the District Railway, as well as Brunel's nearby marvel of bridge engineering, the factory...

Opened with a classic Leslie Green station building in 1906, the 1932 rebuilding of the station rendered the original entrance disused in favour of a subsurface booking hall featuring a display of model buses. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @roundelroundpod, or email us at roundelroundpod@gmail.com Read Reuben Lane's reflection on a journey on the number 19 bus (contains sexual references) References The Underground Stations of Leslie Green by David Leboff (Capital Transport...

Our first Bakerloo line station, Kensal Green has an unusual partly timber clad station building. The local area includes the spectacular Kensal Green cemetery, and is set to be transformed in the near future with the construction nearby of Old Oak Common station on HS2. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @roundelroundpod, or email us at roundelroundpod@gmail.com References London Underground Stations in Colour for the Modeller and Historian by John Glover (Ian Allan Publishing...

Upney station was opened in 1932, on a mainline railway that had been running since the 1880s. The station has only ever been served by District line trains, but it was built by the London Midland and Scottish Railway who owned the mainline at the time, and was run by LMS and then British Railways staff until 1969. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @roundelroundpod, or email us at roundelroundpod@gmail.com References Steam to Silver. A History of London Transport Surface Rolling...