Highgate Tube Station - Wartime and After - Postponement & Cancellation

Postponement & Cancellation

Because of the war the full plan for the reconstruction of the station designed by Charles Holden was not completed and parts for escalators intended for Highgate were used in central London stations. Works to electrify the LNER tracks from Finsbury Park, through Highgate to East Finchley and on the Alexandra Palace branch had been well advanced when war started but were postponed.

LNER trains continued to serve the High Level station, with services to East Finchley continuing until 2 March 1941. After that date LNER trains operated between Finsbury Park and Alexandra Palace only. The start of Underground services between Finchley Central and Mill Hill East in May 1941 was the last part of the Northern Heights Project to be completed.

During World War II Highgate tube station was used, as many were, as a shelter from the bombing of London by the Luftwaffe, and latterly V-1 and V-2 bombs. The politician and entertainer Jerry Springer was born at the tube station.

After the war, maintenance works and reconstruction of war damage on the existing network had the greatest call on London Underground funds. Funds for new works were severely limited and the priority was given to the completion of the Central Line extensions to West Ruislip, Epping and Hainault. It was announced in October 1950 that the extension to Bushey Heath would not be proceeded with, but that extensions to Brockley Hill and beyond Mill Hill East might still proceed. In February 1954 it was finally announced that the extensions beyond Edgware and Mill Hill East had been abandoned. In October 1956 the depot buildings that had been built at Aldenham, in anticipation of the Bushey Heath extension, opened instead as London Transport's bus overhaul facility.

After a temporary closure between October 1951 and January 1952, British Railways (the successor to the LNER) ended services between Finsbury Park and Alexandra Palace permanently on 3 July 1954.

The unfulfilled plans for the station involved a much more substantial station building than the inconsequental structures that were eventually built. A large building at the top of the hill would have been the main entrance with dual escalators in a stepped enclosure down to the level of the surface platforms where a secondary entrance would have provided access from the car park. The building would have been topped by a statue of Dick Whittington and his cat by Eric Aumonier who created the Archer statue at East Finchley. The current buildings were built on a much more modest scale and the escalator link to the high level exit was not built until 1957. This link is housed in a concrete box built up the side of the hill but was never completed as intended@ no down escalator was ever installed although the foundations for it were completed.

The surface platforms and their buildings are still in place and are visible when they are not obscured by trees on the sides of the cutting. A surviving station building from the GNR station, now a private house, may be seen from Priory Gardens. The surface station and overground tunnels have sometimes been used for filming and have appeared in several productions, notably the feature film Paperhouse, the TV series Messiah and the Steven Wilson music documentary film Insurgentes.

Read more about this topic:  Highgate Tube Station, Wartime and After

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