Brent Cross

 

Brent Cross is the 216th station I have visited on the Underground and this will probably be the shortest post I have written about an underground station. The station opened in November 1923 and formed part of the extension of what was to become the Northern Line. The station, along with neighbouring stations was designed by Stanley Heaps. Heaps was assistant to Leslie Green who designed a number of stations on this line. Heaps succeeded Green after his death in 1908. At the beginning Heaps used similar ideas to Green and used the same ox-blood red tiles on the outside of the stations but by the time he designed this one he had developed his own style,

The arrival of these tube stations into rural areas stimulated development into suburbs. The new underground railway network allowed the working classes to move out of London into more spacious housing with gardens and commute into the capital.

The station has an island platform with trains running on either side.

The platform has a girder canopy covering its centre. 

 

Exit from the platform is down the staircase which is also  covered by a girder canopy.

   The staircase leads you to the ticket hall with its wrought-iron unglazed 

fanlight

It is a large ticket hall  with modern replicas of the original tiling.

The labyrinth was easy to spot at this station.

The entrance has a completely different look from other stations with the Portland stone double columns. Above the entrance is an original 'UndergrounD' roundel sign.

The arrival of these tube stations into rural areas stimulated development into suburbs. The new underground railway network allowed the working classes to move out of London into more spacious housing with gardens and commute into the capital. Walking around the station I only came across residential roads.

Brent Cross is a major traffic interchange and was the original name of the crossroads here. I needed to cross this road via the bridge up ahead.

Once I had crossed the road, I then had to cross  another bridge over the River Brent. The river is a tributary of the River Thames which it joins at Brentford.

The reason for crossing over to this side was to reach the Brent Cross Shopping Centre, the first enclosed American style shopping centres in the UK. It opened in 1976 and included shopping, eating and entertainment under one roof which was unheard of in the mid 1970s. It was built on the site of the Hendon Greyhound Stadium and was extended in 1995.

 

Brent Cross is undergoing extensive development with the building of over 6000 new homes, new parkland and other retail outlets so I imagine in a couple of years it will look completely different from today.