Present
The two storey yellow brick station buildings are unusually fine examples of mid-Victorian railway architecture and are protected as part of the Kew Gardens conservation area. The station is one of the few remaining 19th century stations on the North London Line and had one of the last illuminated banner signals on the London Underground, possibly because of the footbridge. This signal was replaced by an electronic version in 2011.
The footbridge to the south of the station is also noteworthy and is Grade II listed in its own right. The railway line bisected Kew, but it was not until 1912 that the bridge was provided to allow residents to cross the tracks safely. It is a rare surviving example of a reinforced concrete structure built using a pioneering technique devised by the French engineer François Hennebique. The bridge has a narrow deck and very high walls, designed to protect its users' clothing from the smoke of steam trains passing underneath. It also has protrusions on either side of the deck to deflect smoke away from the bridge structure. It was restored in 2004 with a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Kew Gardens is the only station on the London Underground network that has a pub attached to it. 'The Railway' has a door (now closed) which leads out onto platform one.
Read more about this topic: Kew Gardens Station (London)
Famous quotes containing the word present:
“America’s present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration.”
—Warren Gamaliel Harding (1865–1923)
“A two-week-old infant cries an average of one and a half hours every day. This increases to approximately three hours per day when the child is about six weeks old. By the time children are twelve weeks old, their daily crying has decreased dramatically and averages less than one hour. This same basic pattern of crying is present among children from a wide range of cultures throughout the world. It appears to be wired into the nervous system of our species.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“I will venture to affirm, that the three seasons wherein our corn has miscarried did no more contribute to our present misery, than one spoonful of water thrown upon a rat already drowned would contribute to his death; and that the present plentiful harvest, although it should be followed by a dozen ensuing, would no more restore us, than it would the rat aforesaid to put him near the fire, which might indeed warm his fur-coat, but never bring him back to life.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)