South Kentish Town tube station

South Kentish Town is a disused London Underground station located in Kentish Town, north London, on the High Barnet branch of the Northern line.

South Kentish Town
The station building in 2020
South Kentish Town
Location of South Kentish Town in London Borough of Camden
LocationKentish Town
Local authorityCamden
Number of platforms2
Railway companies
Original companyCharing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway
Key dates
22 June 1907 (1907-06-22)Opened
5 June 1924 (1924-06-05)Closed
Other information
WGS8451.54528°N 0.14167°W / 51.54528; -0.14167
 London transport portal

It was opened in 1907 by the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway but closed in 1924 due to low passenger usage. Latterly, it was on the Northern line's High Barnet branch between Camden Town and Kentish Town stations. The surface building survives on Kentish Town Road and is currently a retail unit.

History

South Kentish Town station was opened on 22 June 1907 by the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway (CCE&HR) on its branch to Highgate (now Archway).[1] The station was planned to be called Castle Road; however, this was changed just before it opened. The Castle Road name had already been fired into the original Leslie Green tiles inside the station, so after the name change they were painted over with the revised name.

On 20 April 1924, trains of the City & South London Railway began to call at the station as the connection between the CCE&HR and C&SLR at Camden Town allowed the C&SLR to extend its services northwards along the CCE&HR's northern branches. This situation would only last for seven weeks. The station was temporarily closed following unofficial strike action at Lots Road Power Station during the afternoon of 5 June 1924. It was decided not to re-open the station after the power was restored, due to the very low number of passengers using it; in fact, since as early as 1908 some trains did not stop there.[2] During the Blitz in the Second World War it was adapted for use as an air-raid shelter.

There have been occasional proposals to rebuild the platforms and the station as part of the redevelopment plans for Camden Town. The layout of South Kentish Town is similar to Kentish Town (also originally a CCE&HR station); with two 23 ft (7.0 m) diameter lift-shafts and an 18 ft (5.5 m) diameter spiral staircase. South Kentish Town now serves as an access point for permanent way works and as an emergency egress point for passenger services.

A prose piece called South Kentish Town was written in 1951 by John Betjeman which tells the fictional story of a passenger who became trapped in the disused station. It was based on a true incident where a train stopped at the station and mistakenly opened its doors, but in reality nobody became trapped.[2]

gollark: Well, that's not great, is it.
gollark: ```$ curl -X POST --data "Hello, world!" http://115.69.164.101:2048/2<html><head><title>500 Internal Server Error</title></head><body><h1>500 Internal Server Error</h1>Server got itself in trouble</body></html>⏎ ```
gollark: ```<html><head><title>500 Internal Server Error</title></head><body><h1>500 Internal Server Error</h1>Server got itself in trouble</body></html>⏎ ```
gollark: What are you trying to add to stats!
gollark: No, don't!

References
  1. Rose, Douglas (1999). The London Underground, A Diagrammatic History. Douglas Rose/Capital Transport. ISBN 1-85414-219-4.
  2. Connor, J.E. (1999). "South Kentish Town". London's Disused Underground Stations. Capital Transport. pp. 22–25. ISBN 1-85414-250-X.
  Former service  
Preceding station   London Underground   Following station
towards Highgate
Northern line
(June 1907–April 1924)
towards Charing Cross
Northern line
(April–June 1924)
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