This whole blog post was brought to you by a book called What’s in a Name? written by Cyril M. Harris. This book is about all the names of the tube stops and where they come from and I received it from Brandy for Christmas. Brandy was talking to our friend Carol who was then talking about it with someone else and the person mentioned Do Not Alight Here: Walking London’s Lost Underground and Railway Stations by Ben Pedroche.
As the title says, Do Not Alight Here: Walking London’s Lost Underground and Railway Stations is about underground and railway stations that are no longer in use by the London transit vehicles but still have physical buildings or stops. Brandy and I decided to copy Carol’s idea and go on a walk from the book. We chose to start out with “Walk 6: A City at War: south London’s deep-level shelters”. It was a two hour walk (give or take an hour as we and the author disagreed on some important walking times) and took us from just outside Western Central London to the edge of Zone 2 on the Northern Line.
If you look very closely, you can see the green circle just above the river bend in zone 1 and the red circle in the bottom middle of zone 2. The green (Victoria) was our starting point and the red (Between Clapham Junction and Clapham North) was our ending point.
This walk had some old railway and underground stations but it also had 4 of 8 of London’s deep-level shelters built during the 1940’s by the British government, which were then used during WW2 to protect people from Hitler’s bombing campaign. After the war, there was talk of building another line that would go underneath the Northern line but that never materialized. Now days, they are used by storage.
Our first stop was Grosvenor Road Station which opened in 1867 by London, Chatham and Dover Railway. It serviced two railways however by 1911, trains ceased stopping there. Nowadays, there is a line that runs right past it but you would only see the old disused station. curiously enough, I saw an owl in the third corner window on the left.
Brandy and I celebrating our first find.
The old Battersea Power Station.
Our book tour guide just really wanted us to know about this place. It’s massive! It was closed in the 1980’s.
I always find it funny when people post things about not posting things on something.
Pretty picture. See on the far left where there’s a giant glass building? That used to be two stations that were probably used to bring people to and from work at the power station.
Oh no! The sun is starting to set and we’re just beginning!
Side note: This was not a stop or anything but I found this funny. It was a “park” for people to use for conservation study and fishing. But it’s locked at all times. By not one but two gates.
This is the whole thing.
This is Battersea Road Park Station which had red doors on either side of the bridge. It opened in 1867 and closed in 1916.
These pictures are of an entrance to the power plant I believe.
This is an old part of Battersea Park station. There is an open station just on the left of the wooden door. It’s so tiny!
Next up! Queenstown Road. You can still see the old station name above the current name of the station which is pretty cool. Because this one had stairs to get to the station, we got to sneak in without paying anything and take pictures and then exit when we were done.
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Despite the fact that trains don’t even slow down and the doors don’t open here, DO NOT ALIGHT HERE!
Here is the old platform for Queenstown Road station. We were standing opposite it on a currently used station garnering some odd looks from passers-by.
Seen above: Possible old signal box?!
We saw this dude and had to laugh. I wish you could see his beard properly.
Our second to last stop! This was Stockwell station, the southern entrance. It is also the site of one of the deep-level shelters. There were facilities inside for people to use during the bombings in the 1940’s.
This was the North entrance to the tunnel. It has been decorated by school children. We concluded our tour here because 1. It was really dark and 2. Our feet HURT!
Here’s Clapham North Deep Level Shelter which we saw from a bus but didn’t get pictures of. So here’s one courtesy of Google.
There should have been one or two more but we felt we needed more daylight. Maybe we can conclude it next time we go into Central.
We want to keep doing these so keep posted! We’ll try to do all of them.
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