This week, Camden guide Lynette Denzey kicks off a seven-part series on Leslie Green, the architect behind 11 of Camden’s Tube stations. First stop: Goodge Street, with its iconic oxblood tiles and bold design. More stations—and stories—will follow in the months ahead.
CAMDEN’S GREEN STATIONS
Leslie William Green (Wikipedia)
11 of the 17 London Borough of Camden’s tube stations were designed by the architect Leslie Green and four of them are now Grade II Listed – Belsize Park, Chalk Farm, Mornington Crescent and Russell Square and you can read about them here from a previous Blog.
Leslie William Green was born in 1875 in Maida Vale the son of an architect. He formed his own architect’s practice in 1897, initially in his father’s offices. In 1903, by which time he had his own offices in Adam Street, just off the Strand, Green was appointed architect for the Underground Electric Railways Company (UER) and he was commissioned by UER to design 50 new stations – inside and out. A massive project.
Once you have had a “Leslie Green Station” pointed out to you they will suddenly seem to be everywhere, an early example of a strong and consistent corporate image. They are a very distinctive house style, following a standardised design and plan adapted to suit each site.
The exterior of the station was clad with ox blood red glazed terracotta blocks (known as sang de boeuf meaning ox blood) provided by the Leeds Fire Clay Company. The ground floor was divided by columns, giving separate entrances and exits, space for retail outlets, and with a flat roof for future commercial development above the station.
So, the exteriors of Green’s tube stations are very distinctive, but so too were the interiors.
Ticket halls featured deep green tiling in Art Nouveau style with stylised acanthus leaf or pomegranate friezes and ticket windows set in niche surrounds. Unfortunately, few of these original features survive in the stations today.
Stairs, corridors and platforms were faced in glazed tiles with directional signage, each station with its unique colour scheme and geometric pattern. Green did this so those passengers who were illiterate would know where they were by recognising the tile colour and pattern.
So, over the next few weeks, let us look more closely at some of Camden’s other Green Stations the first being Goodge Street.
Goodge Street Station
In 1907, when this station was opened, it was originally called Tottenham Court Road but was renamed in 1908 so as not to confuse with the station at the Oxford Street end of Tottenham Court Road. This name changing is going to be a continuing theme with Green stations.
Goodge Street station is a particularly good exterior example of Green’s design – the red cladding – and with four (of the original six) lamp fittings which can be seen in more detail in the photo below.
The bays under the semi-circular windows are entrances to the station with the left hand one used as an exit only during busy times. Under the three rectangular windows, either side of the grey metal door, were once two small shop units, one a tobacconist, both now blocked in with the same red faience with a flower stall set up in front of the right hand one.
The blue enamel panel showing the station name (unfortunately currently hidden by scaffolding, you can just get a peek of it above) was installed in 1925, perhaps as part of the construction of the brick building above the station.
The original ticket hall remains, as does some original tiling at ground floor level, but the other Green features were removed when the station lift was replaced in 1980. The spiral staircase and corridor at the lower level are still tiled with the original light green tiles as can be seen in the photo above.
Just around the corner from the station in Chenies Street is The Eisenhower Centre.
This was originally an entrance to tunnels, being part of a system of deep shelters built below seven of the Northern Line stations (with an eighth one at Chancery Lane), to be used to house government departments during World War Two, but none were ever used for this purpose. The original plan for the tunnels however had been to build tunnel shelters to accommodate up to 64,000 people during the Blitz, but up to 180,000 Londoners were already using (unofficially) tube stations as bomb shelters.
In 1942 the Goodge Street shelter became Dwight D Eisenhower’s headquarters for over a year when, as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe during WW2, he planned the D-Day Normandy invasion before moving to an advance headquarters in Hampshire. There was a scrambler phone at Goodge Street to enable Eisenhower to speak to Winston Churchill. Even after Eisenhower moved to Hampshire Goodge Street remained the centre of communications for the high command. On D-Day three telephone lines were established between Goodge Street and the three British and Canadian beaches – Juno, Sword and Gold. So, Goodge Street received the first report of what was happening on the Normandy beaches on D-Day.
Hence this building is named The Eisenhower Centre, but I doubt many people walking past today know of its illustrious place in history. It is now used for storage of documents.
If any regular passengers travelling through Goodge Street station notice any other points of interest do let us know.