Euston's Abandoned Underground Station

it would be hard to find a less abandoned station than houston at the last count it had 44 million passengers using it per year it's the fifth busiest station in britain it's on two of the busiest underground lines plus the overground plus it's at the start of the west coast main line to glasgow it's so not abandoned that it's being rebuilt to provide more capacity nevertheless in the shadow of the terminus sits this building here yep that's looking pretty abandoned we're going to check it out courtesy of the london transport museum's hidden london tours more on that at the end and while we do let's talk history houston station was opened in 1837 by the london and birmingham railway originally announcing its presence with a truly massive doric arch over the coming decades the station would become the departure point for some of the most prestigious trains in british history including the royal scot the irish male and the coronation scot in 1863 the metropolitan railway opened a station nearby that was initially known as gower street but is now houston square on the 12th of may 1907 the city and south london railway built a deep level underground station here which was technically a separate thing from the main line station and just over a month later on the 22nd of june the charing cross houston and hampstead railway opened their station the charing cross houston and hampstead railway better known as the hampstead tube and even better known as the chairing cross branch of the northern line is the line whose station we will be concentrating on today originally this was going to run from charing cross to hampstead with a separate branch coming off more or less where warren street is today to serve houston the hope was that they could extend to saint pancras and king's cross they changed their minds for two reasons one was to do with operations it would put three potentially very busy stations in a row on a short branch line which would undoubtedly cause congestion at the junction and the other came from the owners of saint pancras the midland railway who objected to the idea of a tubeline running under their station their lower level was actually a massive beer seller so maybe they feared the effects of tube trains on the beer has anyone ever tried that if you're a craft beer brewer hit me up we'll be millionaires by christmas so the line was rerouted to put houston on the main route that being done a station was designed these days the underground and mainline stations are very much one single thing but that wasn't the case back then the hampstead tube was one of underground electric railways of london's lines and what that meant was that it got a station designed by leslie green green stations are one of the icons of the underground with their oxblood tiled facades arched windows and little art nouveau flourishes the building sits on the corner of drummond and melton streets every leslie green station has its own little differences variations on a theme probably the most obvious one here is the whacking great electrical substation behind it there were no escalators they wouldn't arrive on the underground until 1911 only lifts this will become significant later this wasn't the only entrance there was also one inside the main station at platforms two and three but perhaps the most interesting if you're into your london underground politics was the passage that connected it with the city and south london railway which included its own ticket office see at the time the two lines were separate entities owned by different companies but it was becoming clear that there were advantages in cooperation which really was an important step in forming the modern underground network but it was this unification that would result in the abandonment of the station in 1913 the city in south london was acquired by underground electric railways of london who wanted to join it physically to the hampstead tube which would ultimately result in the odd mess that is the northern line in many ways houston would have been the ideal place for the two to connect but sadly the layout of the tunnels didn't allow it the junction was put a little further north at camden town instead the unification of the two lines wouldn't be fully completed until 1926 when the hampstead tube reached kennington but in the meantime houston drew management's attention houston was a popular station for sure but the majority of passengers wanted to use the main line station not that many people were actually using leslie green's lovely ticket hall the city in south london had the same issue at their ticket hall in september 1914 both ticket halls were experimentally closed and no one really missed them so eight months later they were closed properly for good the old green station wasn't actually abandoned though despite what i said earlier the lift shafts were turned into ventilation shafts and an ozonizing plant whatever that is was installed the substation was extended into the building the city and south london railway needed the extra power so all that fancy decor for just seven years of public use seems kind of wasteful to be honest but while the ticket hall was closed the passages beneath the station remained complete with the blue and white tiling that is until the 1960s this was a time of enormous change for houston the mainline station required a significant upgrade longer platforms and electrification this being the modernization mad british railways of the late 50s they decided that the best solution was to knock it all down and start again with a modern building that no one likes meanwhile the underground had been playing with the idea of a new north to south line that would eventually become the victoria line and which would have a stop at houston despite a massive campaign opposing the redevelopment including no lesser figure than the poet john benjamin the old station was demolished in 1961. actually the urgent need to build a new underground ticket hall brought the demolition of the arch forward it was in the way of an escalator shaft in december 1968 the victoria line opened the reconstruction made the old passageways redundant they aren't completely disused they form an important part of the ventilation system for the busy station but the corridors are a slightly eerie time capsule of the 1960s normally invisible to the public in 1987 the hampstead tube platforms were redecorated with panels based on the coat of arms of the duke of grafton who is also the earl of houston whose land the station is built on and under i suppose this left the long disused ticket hall as the last visible remnant of the leslie green station but alas this too is to go the arrival of high speed 2 has created the need to once again rebuild houston and that 1960s station no one likes is being knocked down to make way for an even bigger station but unfortunately the hamster tube buildings are also in the way so they're getting the chop too a new substation will be built on nearby stevenson way i have heard rumors about the buildings or at least the facade being preserved in some form but none of these rumors are remotely official and i think frankly they're more wishful thinking than anything else it's a sad end for sure but the story of the london underground is one that's ever evolving well i hope you enjoyed this well ventilated tale from the tube if so please do leave a like and consider subscribing for more thanks as ever to my donors on kofi and patreon you are the underground ticket hall to my city in south london station and i'd like to thank hidden london for making this possible they hold tours of many places on the underground that are normally off limits and they are absolutely fascinating i thought i knew a fair bit about houston but i learned and saw a whole lot of things that i had no idea about including quite a few bits that i didn't talk about in this video i'll put a link in the description to their website and i'll see you all again very soon for another tale from the tube you

Channel: Jago Hazzard

Views: 134,353

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Id: pHqpdANhoJk

Length: 9min 17sec (557 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 21 2022