Firestarter! Strand, Aldwych and the Tube

Strandman does Firestarter!

It is a grim wet Tuesday morning and it is time to turn on those speakers and remember. Play it loud...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyFjUP6wyMA
 

 

Strand / Aldwych tube station was the location for the Prodigy video.

  

So where did it all go wrong?

What might have been:



I was lucky enough (by chance, but is that luck or fate?) to be walking by the open door on Surrey Street (probably some breach of Health & Safety guidelines) to this dis-used tube station and I took the opportunity to go in and spy! I observed filming (see below) and wondered around the top section freely. Stuck in time, Strandman was bewitched and enchanted by this historical relic of a previous generation- what a gem!


 

Aldwych Tube station, former main entrance on the Strand, London. The other entrance lay on the adjacent Surrey Street


Strand / Aldwych tube station is a disused (but still used, as it were) station formerly on the Piccadilly Line of the London Underground, and now part of King's College London. It was the terminus of a short branch from Holborn, and closed in 1994. I went to it many times and remember ‘coming up’ to the surface and being in wonder of the view. It has a well-preserved interior has made it a significant location for design work and filming (more later). As I was growing up I remember the design was so timeless and I love it. When it became in 1995 a photo-me-booth (which clearly had spy and secret entrance written all over) it I fell in love.


To find it:


http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=51.512334,-0.115817&spn=0.008592,0.005932&t=k


The station was intended to be the southern terminus of the Great Northern and Strand Railway (correct use of Strand and Italics, hurrah!), running from Finsbury Park in the north, under King's Cross station, to a point near The Strand. In the event, the GN&SR was merged with two other proposed tubes to form the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway (now known as the Piccadilly Line), and the section to Strand became a mere branch. Although two tunnels were constructed to Holborn they were connected to the northbound Piccadilly Line only.


November 30, 1907: Strand opens and was served only by a shuttle service to Holborn, except for a single late-night service that ran through to Finsbury Park for the benefit of theatre-goers. Those lucky people- their own tube! This was withdrawn in 1908 (shame), and by 1912 the two-train shuttle had been reduced to one train. The branch officially became single track in 1918.


The station was renamed Aldwych (and then end of Strand) in 1917 so that the name Strand could be given to what later became the Northern Line part of Charing Cross tube station. [More on this confusion in another post with Fleet line and Jubilee adding to chaos] A shuttle service continued to run to Aldwych until 1940, when the branch was closed and the station used as a public air-raid shelter. The branch tunnels were used to store the Elgin Marbles and other artifacts from the British Museum. Service was restored in 1946 and continued until September 30, 1994, when the cost of a lift replacement was considered uneconomic, and the branch was closed. It is a fantastic lift by the way!


Over the years the station has been a popular location for film and television companies wanting to film on the Underground. As the branch was entirely self-contained and closed at weekends, its facilities could be put at the disposal of film crews much more easily than those of more active parts of the underground. The station's second platform, closed since 1917, was used for many years to test mock-ups of new designs for platforms at other stations. Both these uses of the station continued after its closure.One of the platforms is now used as a rifle range by King's College London shooting club.


The closed station still has many of its original 1907 features, including tiling and signage. The surface building is hired out for events, functions and art exhibitions. It is visible from Strand opposite St Mary-le-Strand church. A restoration of the building's façade has revealed the original name of the station.


Despite being closed since 1994 the station still appears on a number of station listings along the Piccadilly line. I will try and list them with help please! The trackwork and infrastructure remains in good condition, and a train of ex-Northern Line 1972 tube stock is permanently stabled on the branch - this train drives up and down the branch a few times each week to keep the trackwork in good repair.

Films made at Aldwych tube station:

http://www.cwgcuser.org.uk/personal/subterra/lu/lufilmtv/lufandtv.htm

  • Battle of Britain (1969)
  • Death Line (1972) - standing in for Russell Square tube station
  • Ghost Story (1974)
  • Superman IV: The Quest For Peace (1986)
  • The Krays (1990)
  • Patriot Games (1992)
In Patriot Games, shown on Channel 4 last week, a 1992 film starring Harrison Ford, a bookseller leaves his shop in Piccadilly and – rather curiously, given their relative locations - enters Aldwych station, where an announcement is given that a train will call at Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus (the nearest station to where he started) and Oxford Circus. This would have been an impossible sequence from Aldwych and, indeed, from anywhere without changing lines (from the Piccadilly to the Bakerloo) at Piccadilly Circus.
  • The Line, the Cross and the Curve (1993)
  • Honest (2000)
  • Creep (2004)
  • V for Vendetta (2006) - the name 'Strand' is clearly visible at several points in the film.

Aldwych tube station also features as a level in the video game Tomb Raider 3.


And of course for the Prodigy, Firestarter.

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites/a/aldwych-holborn-branch_line/index.shtml

 

Play it again, Strand

SM

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24.10.06 06:24

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