#hidden london

Went on another brilliant Hidden London tour, this time of Baker Street Station. I love these tours because you get to visit parts of the stations that are normally locked away and discover treasures such as 1940s posters​. More pics here: https://khorazirart.wordpress.com/2024/01/10/hidden-london-baker-street-station/

February's #RareBookPick is from 'The Antiquarian repertory : a miscellaneous assemblage of topography, history, biography, customs, and manners' (1807). This 19th-century illustration depicts of the recumbent Knights Templar sculpted figures found in Temple Church, London, UK. The Knights Templar were a powerful and wealthy Christian military order who fought in the Crusades. The official founding year was 1129, with the order disbanded in 1312.

The Temple was the Knights Templars' headquarters in England. The Round Church was consecrated in 1185 and was modelled on the circular Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the most sacred place of the Holy Land and so of the whole world. 

Temple Church has also gained fame in recent years as it was featured in the novel The Da Vinci Code and also the film of the same name. The church has been in the care of Inner and Middle Temple for 400 years. If you would like to visit the church it is currently open 10:00-16:00 for sightseeing. Find out more here.

Find out how you can sponsor this or any of our other rare books here.

Fantastic space and history!

Euston’s Lost Tunnels

What we now know as the Northern Line was born out of the amalgamation of the City & South London Railway (C&SLR) and the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway (CCE&HR). In 1903, the two companies were granted permission to build underground railways passing in the area near Euston. The owners of Euston, the London & North Western Railway, stipulated that each underground railway must have a separate station buildings. The C&SLR built theirs to the east of Euston, on Seymour Street (now demolished); the CCE&HR built theirs to the west, on Melton Street (scheduled for demolition as part of HS2 works).

The C&SLR and CCE&HR agreed to build a tunnel to connect their platforms, to save passengers from going above ground if changing lines. However, as the lines were run by different companies, a new ticket was required when changing – so a ticket office was installed part way along the linking tunnel (reputedly the only example of this on the entire underground network); there was also a joint ticket hall under the mainline station with direct routes to each line. When the underground lines were unified in 1914, the individual station buildings closed, leaving the ticket hall under the mainline station as the only entrance and exit.

By the 1960s, the lines had long since been operating through Euston as the Northern Line – though as separate branches (still a source of confusion to unwary travellers today). It was the construction of the Victoria Line that finally closed the linking tunnel between the two branches in 1962, with new tunnels and ticket hall being built to cope with increased passenger numbers.

The London Transport Museum operates tours of the disused CCE&HR station and linking tunnel, along with a walk into the ventilation system above the Victoria line platforms. Though converted for service use, the old tunnels were never stripped or cleaned before the modern equipment was put in place; as such, they are something of a time capsule, with walls covered in advertisements from the 1960s, most still remarkably readable over 50 years later.

3 November 2019