Kentish Town Station - History

History

The National Rail station was opened by the Midland Railway in 1868 on the extension to its new London terminal at St Pancras. Prior to that, Midland Railway trains used the London and North Western Railway lines to Euston or the Great Northern Railway lines to King's Cross. Until the St. Pancras extension was complete, and for some time afterwards, some trains exchanged the locomotive at Kentish Town for one fitted with condensing apparatus and continued to Moorgate station, then named Moorgate Street station. For some years trains ran from Kentish Town to Victoria station on the South Eastern and Chatham Railway.

The second largest motive power depot and repair facility on the Midland Rail was north of the station. In 1861 a collision occurred at a siding near the station in which sixteen people were killed and 317 were injured.

From May 1878 to September 1880 the MR Super Outer Circle service ran through the station, from St. Pancras to Earl's Court Underground station via Cricklewood and South Acton. The main line station was rebuilt in 1983, nothing of the original station building remains. The separate London Underground station was opened on 22 June 1907 by the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway (CCE&HR), a precursor of the Northern line. The station was designed by Leslie Green with the ox-blood red glazed terracotta facade and the semi-circular windows at first floor level common to most of the original stations on the CCE&HR and its two associated railways, the Baker Street & Waterloo Railway and Great Northern Piccadilly & Brompton Railway which opened the previous year. When Kentish Town station opened the next CCE&HR station south was South Kentish Town but that station closed in 1924 due to low usage. Gospel Oak station on the North London Line opened in 1860 as "Kentish Town" but was given its present name in 1867 when the North London Line opened Kentish Town West. It was the junction of services to Barking until 1981 when services were diverted to terminate and start from Gospel Oak. The spur line to Junction Road Junction was then closed, the track was removed and the trackbed has been sold for industrial use.