History
The station opened on 24 November 1879 on the Metropolitan Railway (later the Metropolitan Line). From 20 November 1939 it also served the Stanmore branch of the Bakerloo Line, with Met services being withdrawn the following year. It transferred to the Jubilee Line in 1979. The station still has platforms on the Metropolitan line, but these are not in regular use and are only used when the Jubilee line is not serving the station due to planned engineering works or severe service disruption.
The main station buildings, which date from the reconstruction of 1925, are fine examples of the work of C W Clark, the Metropolitan Railway's architect, who used this style of marble white faience for several 'central' area stations. The ticket hall interior, which retains much of the original green tesserae mosaic tiling, is a rare survival and was one of the reasons that led to the station being made a Grade 2 Listed Building in December 2006.
Willesden Green is one of the few stations on the southern section of the former Metropolitan Mainline to still have its original platform buildings intact and its architecture is typical for a station serving a medium sized town. Baker Street and Neasden are the other stations to have its platform buildings intact. The line between Finchley Road and Harrow-on-the-Hill was quadrupled between 1914–1916, and many intermediate stations had to be rebuilt to enable the fast lines to be built.
A goods yard, which was in use until 1966, was located to the north of the station. From 1933, when the London Transport took over service, trains from the north would be run by the LNER to LT Neasden works where they would be then hauled by LT steam locos to Willesden.
There are frequent Jubilee Line trains from central London, some of which terminate at Willesden Green.
Read more about this topic: Willesden Green Tube Station
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“So in accepting the leading of the sentiments, it is not what we believe concerning the immortality of the soul, or the like, but the universal impulse to believe, that is the material circumstance, and is the principal fact in this history of the globe.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“A country grows in history not only because of the heroism of its troops on the field of battle, it grows also when it turns to justice and to right for the conservation of its interests.”
—Aristide Briand (1862–1932)