What's in a Name?

When I was 16 I started work and had to travel out of the area I knew well and catch a bus off to various places in West London. To do this I usually caught a bus to the Elephant, as I previously mentioned on this blog, and then the Bakerloo line up to Charing Cross where I changed onto the District / Circle to Earls Court, South Kensington etc.

Those from a later time might be puzzled and ask, "change at Charing Cross for the district line? But it doesn't go there. don't you mean Embankment? Of course today it doesn't so today they'd be right.

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A few years ago I was watching a old Dr Who film of Dalek Invasion Earth 2163 (I had seen it at the cinema when I was a kid - but let's not go there!) when I saw an anachronism which made me laugh. The "freedom fighters" were hiding in an old wrecked underground station, Embankment, but when the film was made Embankment station didn't exist. ....

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The history of the underground is one which has loads to offer, from innovation, to reuse of assets originally built for a different purpose to sharp business practice and even dare one suggest even darker episodes, (of which more another time), But whatever it was, it certainly wasn't a straightforward well-planned project.

Built by several private companies competing, often to the detriment of each other, as well as the public and their shareholders, the station complex which is now Embankment illustrates the chaos which resulted very well.

The oldest part of the station was opened on 30th May 1870 by the Metropolitan District Railway (now the District line) at the time that the company extended its line between Westminster and Blackfriars in conjunction with the building of the Victoria Embankment. Due to its proximity to the South Eastern Railway's Charing Cross station, the station was called Charing Cross.

So it remained until 1906, (though there were some plans for an express route that never materialised), when the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (now the Bakerloo Line) opened its deep-level platforms beneath, and at ninety degrees to, the platforms of the Metropolitan District Railway. Though connected to the older station, the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway decided to name its platforms differently, as Embankment.

Then in 1914, the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (now a part of the Northern line) opened a one stop extension south from its terminus at Charing Cross. This was built to make a better connect between the Baker Street and Waterloo, and Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railways, as both lines were by then owned by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London which operated two separate, and unconnected, stations at the northern end of the Charing Cross mainline station; Trafalgar Square on the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway. and Charing Cross on the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway.

The Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway extension was constructed as a single track tunnel running south from Charing Cross as a loop under the River Thames and back.

For the opening of the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway extension, the deep-level parts of the station were named "Charing Cross (Embankment)" although the sub-surface platforms remained as Charing Cross, but in 1915, this was simplified by changing the name of the whole station to Charing Cross. The Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway station at the northern end of the Charing Cross mainline station was renamed Strand at the same time.

In the 1920s, as part of the construction of what is now the Northern line, the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway was extended south to Waterloo and Kennington where it was connected to the City & South London Railway. The loop tunnel under the river was abandoned (although the present northbound Northern line platform follows its course) and two new tunnels were bored south. The new extension was opened on 13 September 1926.

So everything stayed until the Jubilee line came to town. As part of the new construction the two old stations, Trafalgar Square and Strand were to be linked, and new platforms added for the Terminus of the new line. Strand was closed for a long period for the work, then in 1976, shortly after I started work, the old Charing cross became Embankment, so that the merged Strand and Trafalgar Square stations could be named Charing Cross.

So the stations remain today, Embankment, where it belongs on the embankment and Charing Cross under the main line station of the same name.

How did the makers of the Dr Who film predict that in the 1960s?

London Stone

I only really became properly aware of the London Stone relatively recently, in the mid-Nineties when my then partner moved to London and went to work near The Bank.

Sometimes, as you do, you accompany your partner to work, or meet them after for various reasons and that meant arriving at Cannon Street station and crossing the road to walk up St Swithin's Lane.

Doing that took me past a very odd box set into the wall with a plaque set into the top. Well I'm a bit of a sucker for plaques and looking at it I found .....

"This is a fragment of the original piece of limestone once securely fixed on the ground now fronting Cannon Street Station

Removed in 1742 to the north side of the street in 1798 it was built into the south wall of Church of St Swithun London Stone which stood here until demolished in 1962.

Its origin and purpose are unknown but in 1188 there was a reference to Henry, son of Eylwin de Londenstane, subsequently Lord Mayor of London. "

Well as regular readers of my blog will know that was a reason to do some research and shortly I found a whole set of interesting myths.

The Stone is sometimes called the Stone of Brutus because one myth is that the stone was part of an altar built by Brutus of Troy, the legendary founder of London. Another part of that story is that "So long as the stone of Brutus is safe, so long shall London flourish"

Other stories suggest that it is all that remains of an ancient stone circle, said to have once stood on Ludgate Hill, or even that it is the stone from which King Arthur drew Excalibur. A more likely tale is however that it is the the place from which the Romans measured all distances in Britannia.

Certainly it was at the heart of the City of London, and it is said was once a place where deals were forged and oaths were sworn and the point from which official proclamations were once made.

Originally it was situated in the middle of Cannon Street and was much larger than it is now. It was moved, (though why doesn't seem to be recorded), and set into the wall of St Swithin's Church, which was on this site before it was bombed during the Second World War. The Stone was unscathed, so the city survived as per the Brutus Legend.

The stone and the box, which with its substantial iron grille make seeing the stone itself difficult, was listed as a Grade Two Star structure in 1972.

So I don't think it very likely we will get better view of this ancient relic any time soon.

Victoria embankment

One of my earliest memories of having, what you might call, a more adult conversation with my father was on a sunny late morning walking along the Victoria Embankment. It would have been the mid 60s and I don’t have a clue where we had been and I can’t even guess why we were walking along the north side of the river between Blackfriars and Westminster when we lived in Peckham but I clearly remember we were and that it was a warm, sunny, halcyon day.

There are some interesting, (well at least I think so), stories to tell based around this area not the least of which is that the place I was walking on that sunny morning so many years ago is a man made construction completed in 1870 to carry both the underground, and the sewers to
clean the river; however I don’t intend to go into that story as we could fill the magazine with it. Suffice to say that if you go into Embankment Gardens beside Villiers Street to can see where the riverside once was from the position of the river gate entrance of the Duke of Buckingham. In doing this 37 acres of new land was reclaimed from the River.

Oddly however there is a much older construction on the “new” riverside than Buckingham's Gate, in fact it is the oldest man-made construction in London. From further back in history, even than the woman for who it is named, Cleopatra’s Needle was originally built and stood in Egypt, around 1500BC. (If you remember Cleopatra was a consult to Julius Caesar who landed in Kent in a mere 55bc).

It was erected on the Victoria Embankment in 1878 following a long sea voyage and the loss of a crew which had been bringing it to London as a “gift” to the British people in recognition of Nelson’s victory over the French fleet, at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. It is made of granite and the obelisk is 68 feet high and 180 tons in weight.

A couple of odd facts about the pink-granite monolith that it stands on a pedestal, supposedly guarded by two sphinxes, I say supposedly ‘cos the Victorian designers got it wrong, in order to guard the Needle they should face out; instead they face in towards it. Under the Needle buried in the pedestal are two earthenware pots, containing various objects. This very early version of a time capsule holds a portrait of Queen Victoria, iron ropes and cables, a hydraulic jack, copies of an engineering magazine, and portraits of 12 of the most beautiful Englishwomen of the time!

Just as Cleopatra’s Needle forms a centrepiece between Waterloo and Hungerford Bridges, (where because of it’s presence the embankment has been given an Egyptian theme with the benches made with sphinxes and camels for arms), another monument also stands on the embankment forming the centrepiece between Hungerford and Westminster.

Completed in 1923 the Royal Air Force Memorial is a simple monument in Portland stone surmounted by a gilded eagle. The original intention was for the eagle to face inwards to the embankment but the design was altered at the last moment so the eagle faced across the river, symbolically to France. The position was not the first choice, discarding a proposal to join the Army and the Navy in building a memorial opposite Buckingham Palace, the Royal Air Force Memorial Fund had hoped to raise a Cross on the ground between Westminster Abbey and St Margaret’s Church; a hope that the Dean of Westminster was unable to approve because he preferred not to consider a memorial for the Royal Air Force alone. So offered a site at the head of the Whitehall Stairs, that’s where the memorial went.

Currently a new monument is being built, the Battle of Britain Monument which is being sited on an existing panelled granite structure 25 metres long. This structure was originally designed as a smoke outlet for underground trains when they were powered by steam engines. It has been filled up and blocked for many years.

A walkway will be cut obliquely through the middle of the structure, and bronze reliefs, depicting aspects of the Battle in the air and the back-up on the ground, will be placed along either side.

I feel this is quite appropriate as both the RAF Memorial and Cleopatra’s Needle were damaged by enemy bombs in the last war, which I remember my father showing me – along with the remains of a pavement artist’s work which had been abandoned there from the day before.

Whenever I walk down the embankment today, especially in the sun, I think of him – not much has changed there since that day. I only wish I knew why we were there – and where we’d been.

Laurie Smith

The Big Wheel

In writing this series I have up to now, had some connection or personal interest in the subject prior to deciding to write the article but with this one it was finding a picture that intrigued me. Though I have worked in and around Earls Court at various odd times in my career, my earliest visits were at the beginning in 1975 when I had to get off at Earls Court tube station and exit the Warwick Road end in order to walk up to Charles House, where the Post Office then had a training school.

As you leave the station the Earls Court exhibition centre opposite is quite a sight. As a working class south London lad this was my first sight of the famous exhibition centre. The land it occupies was once an awkward triangle of railway tracks, sidings and depots owned by the Earl of Zetland from who it gets its name. Opened in September 1937, the exhibition centre cost £1.5m and was designed by Chicago architect, C Howard. At the time it was the largest reinforced concrete structure in existence.

Exhibitions on the site predate the building however and if I had been there at the turn of the last century I probably would have been even more impressed with the view of the area, as I would have seen the “Gigantic wheel”. Originally built as part of the Empire of India Exhibition in 1895, it stayed there 11 years.

Looking reminiscent of the “London Eye” on the South Bank, the “Gigantic wheel” was also an observation wheel, one of a series of such wheels, the first of which was the “Ferris wheel” at the Chicago Exhibition of 1893. It was this wheel which gives all such “big wheels” their America name and provides another, earlier, connection for the Earls Court site to Chicago. The name came from its designer, George Washington Gale Ferris, whose idea was for an “observation wheel 250 feet high”.

Construction work began on the larger Earls Court wheel in March 1894 when massive concrete footings were put in and it was opened to passengers in July 1895. It had a diameter of 300ft, (larger than the original American one), weighed 1,100 tons and completed one revolution in about 25 minutes. Originally there were to be ‘recreation towers’ on either side with lifts carrying visitors up to the axle, through which it would have been possible to walk, but this was not carried through. The wheel was rotated by means of two 50HP steam engines. Each of the forty cars could accommodate forty passengers so that up to 1,600 could ride the on the wheel together, when it was said that from the top you could see Windsor Castle.

In 1896 another wheel was opened in Blackpool. That big wheel was 214 feet high, and rotated every 15 minutes compared with the 25 minutes of its London rival. It was not tremendously successful however, perhaps because the tower at 519 feet, over twice the wheel’s height, overshadowed it, and it closed relatively quickly.

The final one was built in Vienna; that wheel lasted ‘til it was bombed during the war but it was rebuilt after the war and still exists today. You may remember it in films like “The Third Man” and “The Living Daylights”

Our Earls Court “Gigantic Wheel” suffered an embarrassment in May 1896 when it got stuck for four and half hours. The passengers were handsomely compensated for their ordeal though and this increased its popularity for a while as people hoped they could get a ride and make a profit into the bargain. It was reported that the following day there was a queue of approximately 11,000 people all hoping to get stuck in the wheel and claim their five pounds compensation! Despite this the Earls Court “Gigantic wheel” survived until 1906 when it was demolished because it was no longer profitable. In its life it had conveyed two and a half million passengers.

It was said that it was “a pity that all the ability and cost expended in its construction should not have been devoted to some more useful end than carrying coach loads of fools round a vertical circle’’.

However in spite of such views, (and if you pardon the pun), if it had been in a more central location then, judging by the London Eye, perhaps it would still have been here today. I’ll never look at the London Eye or Earls court in quite the same way again.

Laurie Smith