London’s railways and stations
The growth of the East End has been intertwined with the railways for over a century and a half.
Nowadays the emerging metropolis of Canary Wharf is fed by the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) and the Jubilee Line extension – soon the East End will be linked up with the Millennium Dome site in Greenwich.
Back in the last century, steam trains carried the goods from the docks and met the huge demand for passenger transport as people began to move around the country for the first time.
Railway companies sprung up almost overnight and huge amounts of venture capital were poured into the new business. It meant that there was often over-capacity – in addition to Bow Road Tube station there were another two Bow stations which have since closed.
The platforms of one are still visible above the Ferodo Bridge on Bow Road, though the line is now simply a spur connecting the Fenchurch Street and Liverpool Street lines.
The London and Blackwall Railway was the company covering most of the East End in early Victorian times, but its lines into the City terminated at the Minories.
In 1841, the company won the race to build the first rail terminus in the City of London.
Bizarrely though, until 1849, they didn’t use steam engines. Trains were dragged from Blackwall to the Minories by cable and had to reach Fenchurch Street by their own momentum. The return trip relied on gravity, needing just “a slight push by platform staff to get them started”!
Liverpool Street is the other surviving terminus. In 1862, the newly-formed Great Eastern Railway began looking for a site for a new City station, to extend from the existing terminus at Shoreditch.
The ground they chose had a notorious history in itself, standing on the site occupied by the Bethlem Hospital (Bedlam) till the late 17th century.
Ornate terminus
In typical Victorian style, the various companies competed to build the biggest, grandest and most ornate terminus – and Liverpool Street had to be better than Fenchurch Street.
The original plan was to build a huge edifice standing as high as the neighbouring Broad Street Station and stretching to London Wall. The authorities said no, which is why you will find Edward Wilson’s Victorian Gothic redbrick pile tucked down, its platforms well below ground level.
It opened in 1874, and was extended in 1891 to have more platforms than any other station in the world – until Victoria Station was enlarged in 1908.
Many of us will recall how dismal Liverpool Street was before the refurbishment of the eighties. That refit was a long time coming. During the winter of 1944, Labour MP Tom Driberg described it as “almost completely squalid”.
Poet Laureate John Betjeman had a different view, calling it “the most picturesque and interesting of London termini”.
The third great terminus was Broad Street Station. Immortal- ised in the title of the Paul McCartney movie nobody saw, Give My Regards To Broad Street, the station has become quickly forgotten since its demolition in 1984.
Yet in its day, it was London’s third busiest station, and was planned as the hub of a network linking London with the Midlands.
French design
Broad Street was built in 1865 as the North London Railway terminus – the design, by William Baker, made it look like a French town hall.
The original idea was that Broad Street would be the starting point for goods from the docks on their journey to the heart of England. But by the time the station was finished, it had moved from freight to people.
At the turn of the century, it ranked only behind Liverpool Street and Victoria in passenger volume, but its proximity to the former proved its downfall.
Broad Street lost its passengers to buses, trams and the Tube. The main station was shut in 1950 and spent its last years in sad dereliction. It was demolished in 1984 and replaced by the Broadgate development.