Art Deco Underground: Southgate

Art Deco Underground: Southgate

station is highly celebrated for its distinctive Art Deco / Streamline Moderne architecture. Designed by the renowned architect Charles Holden, it opened on 13 March 1933. The circular brick, concrete, and glass building resembles a classic “flying saucer” or spaceship design. Its prominent flat concrete roof is supported entirely by a ring of horizontal windows […]

Cockfosters: radical interwar modernism

Cockfosters: radical interwar modernism

Reach the northern terminus of the Picadilly Underground Line and it’s hard not to envision uniformed wartime personnel cascading out of trains and across the station concourse. Opening in 1933, Cockfosters is the most distinctive and avant-garde stations on the London Underground network, eschewing Victorian-era brick in favour of concrete, foretelling the arrival of postwar […]

The Red Lion. London’s history on tap.

The Red Lion. London’s history on tap.

The Red Lion23 Crown Passage, London SW1Y 6PPThe Court of St James’s When Henry acquired York Place, he also purchased 20 acres of land to its west (from a Christian mission to St. James for lepers) and created a private royal hunting park. Here, Henry built a lodge to meet with his favourites and have […]

The world’s first deep-level tube railway, London

The world’s first deep-level tube railway, London

The Tower Subway is an historic tunnel that runs beneath the River Thames from Tower Hill to Vine Lane on the south bank. Built in 1869 it is an engineering innovation and recognized as the world’s first deep-level tube railway. (The Thames Tunnel, three miles downstream, predates it but is a much larger diameter railway […]