Recent decades has seen a huge ruination of the old tube architecture stock.
Some stations luckily just get abandoned, others sadly get the refurb
treatment, and become a plastic characatures of their former self. Other sad
old station facades get wiped off the face of the earth, so might be replaced
by sixties catastrophies, or worse, are rebuilt like the euro-stalin halls
similar to Canary Wharf station. Anyway, here's a selection of gone but not forgotten
places of tube worship, now resting in pieces.
STOCKWELL TUBE STATION: Before the terrible modernisation program
that rid the Northern line of many of its monumental domed stations,
old Stockwell looked like this, with it's magnificent lead lined dome and
antique frontage.
Just like any other shop front, you probably
had to knock on the door to get in, asking politely if one could use the
tube please. With the grand architecture and local brick built shops, the
area looks so wonderful compared to the present day hell hole, which is
one of the ugliest station entrances on earth.
But in those old days, Stockwell Tube looks so outstandingly decorative.
All that seems to be left of this old photographical scene
is the ornamental lamp post you can see at the
centre of the side road, which I'm told used to double as the exhaust pipe
of the local gentlemans toilets!
ELEPHANT & CASTLE TUBE STATION: Faded proof here that, in 1962,
just before the building of the shopping centre,
the Elephant itself had one of the fantastic
domed entrances, just opposite the tabernacle, which you can see at the top
right. I'm sorry I couldnt acquire a better picture, although you can
make out the silhouette of what must have been a stunning building. Quite how
anybody, even the meanest of speculators, could have been sick enough to pull
this down, I will never understand. The present day replacement minimalist box
is a horrendous eyesore, just look what we could have preserved instead!
KINGS CROSS TUBE STATION:
Now I've never liked the way that, for the last
century, the frontage of Kings Cross British Rail has been blocked out by
various outbuildings, especially the grotesque booking hall of the last few
decades. I will concede, however, that I wouldnt have minded if they had at
least stuck with this little item, for did you know that Kings Cross Tube
Station once had it's own glorious above-ground section, all done in the
height of victorian architecture, with cute fixtures to match. How devastating
it must have been, how sad it was when they decided to flatten the lot,
just to be replaced
with the nasty looking concourse we have today. It might have even been the
perfect compliment to the BR facade, but we can only dream of what might have
been, thanks to the idiots we have in eternal charge.
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