Aldwych tube station

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Aldwych
Location
Place	Aldwych
Local authority	City of Westminster
History
Opened by	Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway
Platforms	2
Key dates	Opened 1907 Closed 1940 Reopened 1946 Closed 1994
Replaced by	none
Tube Portal

Aldwych tube station is a disused station formerly on the Piccadilly Line of the London Underground, and now part of King's College London. It was the terminus of a short branch from Holborn, and closed in 1994. Its well-preserved interior has made it a significant location for design work and filming.

[edit] History

The station was intended to be the southern terminus of the Great Northern and Strand Railway, running from Finsbury Park in the north, under King's Cross station, to a point near The Strand. In the event, the GN&SR was merged with two other proposed tubes to form the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway (now known as the Piccadilly Line), and the section to Strand became a mere branch. Although two tunnels were constructed to Holborn they were connected to the northbound Piccadilly Line only.

The station opened as Strand station on 30 November 1907, and was served only by a shuttle service to Holborn, except for a single late-night service that ran through to Finsbury Park for the benefit of theatre-goers. This was withdrawn in 1908, and by 1912 the two-train shuttle had been reduced to one train. The branch officially became single track in 1918.

The station was renamed "Aldwych" in 1917 so that the name Strand could be given to what later became the Northern Line part of Charing Cross tube station. A shuttle service continued to run to Aldwych until 1940, when the branch was closed and the station used as a public air-raid shelter. The branch tunnels were used to store the Elgin Marbles and other artifacts from the British Museum. Service was restored in 1946 and continued until 30 September 1994, when the cost of a lift replacement was considered uneconomic, and the branch was closed.

Over the years the station has been a popular location for film and television companies wanting to film on the Underground. As the branch was entirely self-contained and closed at weekends, its facilities could be put at the disposal of film crews much more easily than those of more active parts of the underground. The station's second platform, closed since 1917, was used for many years to test mock-ups of new designs for platforms at other stations. Both these uses of the station continued after its closure.

One of the platforms is now used as a rifle range by King's College London shooting club.

The closed station still has many of its original 1907 features, including tiling and signage. The surface building is hired out for events, functions and art exhibitions. It is visible from the Strand opposite St Mary le Strand church. A restoration of the building's façade has revealed the original name of the station.

How Aldwych tube station might have appeared on the London Underground Map if it were still open to passengers today

Despite being closed since 1994 the station still appears on a number of station listings along the Piccadilly line. The trackwork and infrastructure remains in good condition, and a train of ex-Northern Line 1972 tube stock is permanently stabled on the branch - this train drives up and down the branch a few times each week to keep the trackwork in good repair. The physical connection with the Piccadilly line Eastbound remains, and has been used to bring in heritage trains of 1938 tube stock in connection with filming (the 1972 unit being temporarily outstabled to Cockfosters for the duration).

When the Fleet Line (later to become the Jubilee Line) was being planned in the 1970s, it was envisaged that it would run from Charing Cross via Aldwych and Ludgate Circus and on to East London. This plan was scrapped, but a few hundred yards of experimental tunnel was dug from Charing Cross to Aldwych, although it never connected with the latter station. The tunnel still exists but is unused.

N.B. Aldwych tube station should not be confused with the Aldwych tramway station, which was a stop on the Kingsway tramway subway.

[edit] Trivia

• In Patriot Games, a 1992 film starring Harrison Ford, a bookseller leaves his shop in Piccadilly and – rather curiously, given their relative locations - enters Aldwych station, where an announcement is given that a train will call at Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus (the nearest station to where he started) and Oxford Circus. This would have been an impossible sequence from Aldwych and, indeed, from anywhere without changing lines (from the Piccadilly to the Bakerloo) at Piccadilly Circus.

[edit] Films made at Aldwych tube station

Many films and television productions have been shot at Aldwych, including:

• Battle of Britain (1969)
• Death Line (1972) - standing in for the interior of Russell Square tube station (exteriors used the real station).
• Ghost Story (1974)
• Superman IV: The Quest For Peace (1986)
• The Krays (1990)
• Patriot Games (1992)
• The Line, the Cross and the Curve (1993)
• Honest (2000)
• Creep (2004)
• V for Vendetta (2006) - the name 'Strand' is clearly visible at several points in the film, although in non-original signage added by the film-makers.
• 28 Weeks Later (2007)

Aldwych tube station also features as a level in the video game Tomb Raider 3.

The station facade was also used as the 'base location' in the BBC Three documentary series Spy.

The tunnels at Aldwych were also used in the music video for Firestarter by The Prodigy

[edit] Reference

• J. E. Connor, London's Disused Underground Stations (2nd edition), Capital Transport, 2001.

[edit] External links

• London's Abandoned Tube Stations - Aldwych
• Subterranea Britannica - Aldwych-Holborn Branch
• Clive's Underground Line Guide - Piccadilly Line
• The London Underground in Films & Television

• Maps and aerial photos Coordinates: 51.512334° -0.115817°
  • Satellite image from WikiMapia or Google Map
  • Street map from Multimap or GlobalGuide
  • Aerial image from TerraServer

[edit] See also

• Closed London Underground stations