Liverpool Street Station - History

History

Liverpool Street station was opened on 2 February 1874 by Great Eastern Railway on the site of the original Bethlem Royal Hospital, the world's oldest psychiatric hospital which was also widely known as 'Bedlam'. The station was fully operational from 1 November 1875; from this date the original terminal at Bishopsgate station closed to passengers. Bishopsgate reopened as a goods station in 1881 but was destroyed by a spectacular fire on 5 December 1964. The London Fire Brigade mobilised 40 fire engines, 12 turntable ladders and over 200 firefighters to the incident but were unable to save the depot; two customs officials were killed in the blaze. The site remained derelict for over 30 years but has now been redeveloped as Shoreditch High Street station, part of the extension of London Underground's East London Line to form part of the London Overground network.

The new station was designed by the Great Eastern's chief engineer, Edward Wilson, and was built by John Mowlem & Co. on a site which had been occupied by Bethlem Royal Hospital from the 13th century to the 17th century. A City of London Corporation plaque commemorating the station's construction hangs on the wall of the adjoining former Great Eastern Hotel, rebranded as the Andaz Liverpool Street in 2008, which was designed by Charles Barry, Jr. (son of Sir Charles Barry) and his brother Edward Middleton Barry, and also built by Mowlem. The station was named after the street on which it stands, which in turn was named in honour of Lord Liverpool, prime minister from 1812 to 1827, having been built as part of an extension of the City towards the end of his term in office.

The construction of the station was driven by the desire of the company to have a terminal closer to the City than the one opened by the predecessor Eastern Counties Railway at Shoreditch, on 1 July 1840. This station was renamed "Bishopsgate" in 1846. The construction proved extremely expensive due to the cost of acquiring property and many people were displaced due to the large scale demolitions. The desire to link the Eastern lines to those of the sub-surface Metropolitan Railway, a link seldom used and soon abandoned, also meant that the GER's lines had to drop down to below ground level from the existing viaducts east of Bishopsgate. This means that there are considerable gradients leading out of the station. Lord Salisbury, who was chairman of Great Eastern in 1870, described the Liverpool Street extension as "one of the greatest mistakes ever committed in connection with a railway."

Liverpool Street is one of the four railway stations on the Monopoly board, first introduced in the early 20th century.

The station was the first place in London to be hit by German Gotha G.V bomber aircraft during World War I. The May 1917 bombing, when the station took a direct hit from 1,000 pounds of bombs, killed 162 people. In 1922, those employees of GER who died during the War were honoured on a large marble memorial on Liverpool Street's concourse, unveiled by Sir Henry Wilson. On his return home from the ceremony, Wilson was assassinated by two Irish Republican Army volunteers.

Many Jewish refugee children arrived at Liverpool Street in the late 1930s, as part of the Kindertransport. In September 2003 the sculpture Für Das Kind Kindertransport Memorial by artist Flor Kent, who conceived the project, was installed in the station. It consisted of a specialised glass case with original objects and a bronze sculpture of a girl, a direct descendant of a child rescued by Sir Nicholas Winton, who unveiled the work. The objects included in the sculpture began to suffer deterioration due to weather, and in 2006 a replacement bronze memorial by Frank Meisler, depicting a group of children and a railway track, was installed. The statue of the child from the Kent memorial was re-erected separately on the platform-level concourse.

By the 1970s the station had become dark, dilapidated and dank, whilst evocative of another age. The station was extensively modified between 1985 and 1992, including bringing all the platforms in the main shed up to the same end point and constructing a new underground booking office, but its façade, Victorian cast-iron pillars, and the memorial for Great Eastern Railway employees who died in World War I were retained. The redevelopment coincided with the closure and demolition of neighbouring Broad Street station and the construction of the Broadgate development in its place. Liverpool Street was officially re-opened by H.M. Queen Elizabeth II in 1991. At this time a giant departures board, which is suspended above the station concourse, was installed at great expense. However due to technical difficulties there was a long delay after the official opening before it became operational. It was one of the last remaining mechanical 'flapper' display boards at a British railway station and certainly the largest, but was removed from service in September 2007 and replaced by electronic boards. In 1992, an additional entrance and exit was constructed from the east side of Bishopsgate with a subway under the thoroughfare.

The 'new' station roof was built largely in the style of the Western part of the station which survived the war. The original roofing was painted brown at this time, with smoked plexiglass, while the new roofing was painted blue with clear glass so that people could differentiate between new and old. All the platforms now end in a uniform line, and can accommodate 12-carriage trains (except for platforms 16 to 18, which can only accommodate eight carriages).

The station was twinned with Amsterdam Centraal railway station in 1993, with a plaque marking this close to the main entrance to the Underground station.