The Station Built Out of Spite: Tower of London
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 27 сен 2024
- It took sixteen years for the Metropolitan Railway to build a stretch of track, but two days for them to build a station to annoy their rivals.
Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/jago...
Patreon: / jagohazzard 
Развлечения
Years ago London Transport featured famous people from history advertising various stations. Perhaps not surprisingly Henry VIII was chosen for Tower Hill. He was pictured asking for a return to Tower Hill. Next to it someone added "and a single for the wife"
That's brilliant
So like a tinder advertising?
I don't get it
@@lukealadeen7836 i want answers too!
@@nolesy34 he killed alot of his own wife's.
I love how people fed up literally formed a "Get the thing done" company.
Same thing happened in Los Angeles with the Gold Line to Pasadena.
@@themoviedealers Or, um not. The Gold Line was always owned by the government and was delayed mainly because a ballot measure banned the construction of underground tunnels/subways anywhere in Los Angeles County (it was originally going to connect to the Blue Line and be called the Pasadena Blue Line). Eventually a congressman introduced a bill create a new government agency to build the above ground section from Union Station to Pasadena. Note the lack of competing businessmen, or any businessmen, really, or competing personalities even (the voters banned it's construction by banning subway tunnels).
There is currently a project to finally connect the two sections called the Regional Connector which should open later this year, after being behind schedule for several years.
I love how it was even in the name. The name itself had the word "completion". As in, this company was made to complete the job of the other one 😂😂
On a visit to the Tower of London, a beefeater told us that a tourist who was puffed out from walking from the tube station, asked why they hadn’t built the Tower closer to the station…
Huh, the tube station is ... right there though, how much closer did they think it could be? XD
Some TV company needs to make a series out of the Edward Watkin/James Stats Forbs rivalry. There certainly is plenty of drama there!
It'll need a bit of Charlie Yerkes in it too to stir things up from mid way through series 2.
@@Ad-gn8pl definitely! He'd get a big dramatic entrance through double doors halfway through a meeting/arguement!
wheres tim dunn and siddy holloway they would do it.
I could easily vsee Timothy West, and the late, great John Thaw as the chief protagonists.
@@Ad-gn8pl 😂
Jago, can I just congratulate you on the line "'If you don't knock it off, it's ring-a-ding-ding for you bozos', (or words to that effect)". Masterful writing that makes history come alive!
Thank you!
@@JagoHazzard I seem to remember that line from The Onion, although perhaps it came from somewhere else.
That and working in both 'monkeyshines' and 'jiggery-pokery'.
Forget "Mornington Crescent- the board game". This has all the makings of a Christmas pantomime, with Watkin as the villein, all top hats, green lighting and exploding side-whiskers.
An internecine mafia feud, with an incidental public transportation system thrown in for good measure. Brilliant stuff, Jago this is far more illuminating than any history book on the subject could be!
THERE'S A MORNINGTON CRESCENT BOARD GAME????????????????????
There are a number of tube pioneer pantomime villains, enter evil Chicago Charles! Now wicked Eddie Watkins. You wonder the did not try to tie victims to tracks.
@@garethaethwy Yes, it costs £30. Plus £156,492,581 for the rule books.
Difinitely. Or even a Peaky Blinders type of series.
@@jammin023 : You little tinker. You had me going there for a minute.
The background makes the story - so no need to apologize. Excellent tale, per usual
As someone from south Essex, I'm sure I'm not the only one for whom Tower Hill was, and often still is, my first experience of the Tube. For that, it will always hold a soft spot in my heart.
The District Railway supposedly refused to sell any tickets to Tower of London only Mark Lane although the period they were both open suggest this was just a gesture. Although both it and the Met were fond of sending people the wrong way round the Circle to use their own services.
C.T. Yerkes, shenanigans on Friday and Watkin Shenanigans on Sunday my weekend has been COMPLETE
I’m in the building to be enlightened by Jago Hazzard !
I find all of your uploads so fascinating. I have lived most of my life in London and worked for London Underground, as it was called then, but had no idea how all of these different lines and companies run separately and the fierce competition. How it has evolved over the last 100+ years, but still some of the beautiful original architecture still remains, not only in stations still open, but other forgotten ones, that we probably pass by and not realise. You do such an amazing videos, and always with a bit of humour added into them.
"I just find it funny that you have one of the best known transport systems in the world and it was shaped by petty rivalry."
*Laughs in BMT/IND/IRT*
Major Facts ESPECIALLY with the IND
but competition is always good. fair competition i mean.
@@fly89 Lol Fair Competition.....To the IND there wasn't such a thing. That's why the D Train runs a block up from the 4 in The Bronx or the A Train following the 1 Train for as long as it can in Upper Manhattan.
It’s well known because it is so awful and disruptive
I really enjoyed this video but I found it really hard to follow and kept having to rewind. There are so many different rail companies from that period and they sound so similar. It would be great if you could bring up the names and logos of each company each time you mention them, they're really hard to keep track of and distinguish. Also have maybe animations or diagrams showing the lines so we can follow where train ran, and then stopped running, where rerouted to etc.
This seems like an argument against having private rail companies, who are bound to compete for business. Perhaps such an important piece of infrastructure as a railway system should be nationalised! See also, electricity, water, telephones...
To be honest, i found his previous video much more confusing than this one. Probs because it involves more planned lines that didn't see the light of day.
This helps me realise why some District line trains terminate at Tower Hill when you'd think it would be more useful for them to carry on to Aldgate - getting from Tower Hill to Aldgate or Liverpool Street could be very annoying with gaps in the service. But Aldgate didn't have a nice empty space where another station had been 80 years previously.
With all the going on between the bosses its a miracle we have anything to show for it now.
I love the madness involved in how our trains were built
Now he's just spoiling us. 👍🏻🇬🇧
Ah bit of good old fashioned British spite, ya can't beat it!
I’m pleased that the RUclips algorithm has finally correctly identified me as a nerd interested in London and trains and suchlike, and served me up this video from your channel! I believe I’ve got some catching up to do :)
0:58 that's the first time in years I've heard that specific variant of 'Mind the Gap'. I thought it had been phased out like most of the other versions, replaced with that godawful version that you can hear at 5:08
It's wonderful story. The widow of the original announcer - Oswald Laurence - asked TFL to put his voice back. And they did - but only at Embankment. A believe a certain youtuber "Jago Hazzard" has done a video on this. It might be worth checking out.
@@TheOoblick I'm aware of the story, that's why I said 'most other versions'. As far as I knew, that one at Embankment was the only unique one still being used on the network. The one I can hear in this video should be the one this link takes you too: ruclips.net/video/7Fw8l5tCi18/видео.html
Maaind, Thaa Gaap
My Sunday made
We got monkeyshines and jiggery-pokery? Lovely.
I love the poppy variation of the traditional tube logo.
I remember using Tower Hill station once when I came down from Leeds for a weekend trip to London as my hotel was nearby and I was hugely underwhelmed with the station from what I was expecting it to be!
I remember Tower Hill all to well. Second car from the front, up the stairs, turn right and run for the first train to Southend from Fenchurch Street
Any time in the future I hear about neoliberal free market proselytes telling how the market will solve every problem on their own without government intervention I will tell them about the London Underground...
Yes, but anyone who lives in Britain has long and bitter experience of government intervention. Choose your poison.
Spite was a favorite construction material of the ancient Phoenicians.
Of all the nerdy infrastructure-related channels to which I subscribe, yours is the only on where I look forward to hearing the Patreon thank at the end.
"You are the compliment to my presentation"
And, at the far Eastern end of the Westbound through platform at Tower Hill it is possible to see part of the foundation of the Roman city wall. I don't know if that was true of the earlier station.
Great video Jago
I remember going there almost 10 years ago. The bits of Roman walls nearby made the station memorable!
Yes, you come up in that little park with a big sundial and a Roman wall, with a direct view of the Tower of London but with slightly confusing signage as to how to actually get there.
Just beyond the roundel on the column at 6.23, there is a park, garden and memorial for those lost at sea in WW1 & WW2. We discovered a year or two back that my Grandfather was named on it. being a Trinity House pilot, lost at sea in 1940. Trinity House being to the East of the Tower of London / Tower station. We were delighted to find the memorial, despite the fact many of my family members had worked in the Tower Hill area and had walked past that memorial almost daily for years. We only found out last year the GF died at sea, but was not lost to the sea. He was laid to rest in the CWGC cemetery in Gravesend and had been laid to rest with ceremony, but without a memorial. Luckily CWGC have now addressed this and a memorial is being organized. Ok nothing to do with the tube, but another memory triggered by the splendid series of films. Or as the family put it, you're not watching videos about the bloody underground again ? It's Geoff Marshall and Tim Dunn's fault !
What the interchange between Fenchurch Street & Tower Hill needs is some signage! Any time I've tried it I've walked out of Fenchurch Street & stood there for a minute trying to get my bearings before getting my phone out & opening gurgle maps. I'm quite familiar with London transport, despite being an out-of-towner, so a foreign visitor in London for the first time could spend an hour looking for the Tower
Excellent use of the term "jiggery pokery".
Another marvellous tale from the tube. Your dry wit makes these videos so entertaining if not actually educational for those of us not necessarily interested in such abstruse matters.
Always interesting to hear the history of the lines and stations
Informative, and amusing ! Thank you, Jago ! Keep 'em coming !!
I remember both Mansion House and Tower Hill had 3 platforms so they could reverse back into the City. Do you know if they still have the "whistling buffer" at Mansion House. It was an embarrassment if a driver hit the buffer at Mansion House as it whistled.
I love how you use clips with snow in the summer. You probably started when it was snowing and only just able to finish. The plague really slower you down.
Does that mean that the 'Tower of London' station holds the record as the shortest lived station on the network?
Ohh, close , there are a couple of other challengers.
I would just like to say my friend that all of your videos are 1st class... Highly recommended to view... Top draw... Once again many many thanks Jago...
Very interesting! My office was moved to America Square a few months ago, so I'm getting to know the area better. My building seems to have been built around the lines to/from Fenchurch St! There's plenty of history around (it must be less than a half a mile from where the Fire of London started) like St Olave's Church, if you are a Pepys fan, and French Ordinary Court, if you are just nerdy!! And such a contrast with all the new iconic buildings in the heart of the City!!
Slightly off topic, another thing I've been reading about recently is how or if the Underground line to Aldgate might have played a part in the 'Jack the Ripper' events in 1888. There's a theory that the murderer used the Underground to travel to the Whitechapel/Shoreditch area, rather than living there him/her self. Any thoughts Jago?
It was nice hearing the background.
People often forget how petty the competition can get between businesses.
Congratulations on the use of both shenanigans and jiggery pokery in your script. Both great words / expressions. Cheers
Even better was the use of monkeyshine, a word I'd never heard before.
Your discussions of the background are why I follow your channel.
Now this is the content I come back for every time.
The last line of his script just before the outro. (Chef's Kiss)
I may not have been created out of spite, but I do survive and thrive on it. I like this stations backstory, for obvious reasons.
Thanks Jago Keep Safe 😉👍
I love finding old videos that I haven't seen before!
One of the few Underground stories that don't involve Yerkes
A very intersting video, I did visit Tower hill station back in May. :)
The British aphorisms in this video were outstanding. Champagne stuff.
more petty rivalry tales please
Excellent episode Jago
Informative and fun to know all this drama behind!!
The northern platform of Mark Lane is still there, still lit and still visible as you approach Tower Hill from the west
Is it visible on Google Street Map?
Can you imagine what kind of system there might have been if they had been friends?
Quite possibly less! Tower of London might not have been built, so the rebuilt Tower Hill wouldn't have been either. And there are a lot of useful alternative routes through Kent thanks to the SER/LCDR rivalry. Feuds have their uses!
Built out of spite? Sounds like something my sister would do. Years ago, when I was learning to drive, she decided she was going to pass her test before me. She actually went and bought THE car I was going to buy, just so I couldn't have it. Not an identical one. Not a similar one. THE ACTUAL CAR.
She drove it about six times, and its been sat rusting ever since. It's now 21 years old. We're scrapping it next week.
She still didn't learn to drive.
She's reminded of her pettiness every time I drive past her in my sports car while she waits for the bus.
I don't hold a grudge; I blast my horn and give her a wave ;)
Now that really was a “tale from the tube” - shenanigans indeed!
At 1:49, I can't help but notice the different spelling of the now Gloucester Road, as "Gloster" Road (or Rd. as is on the map).
There's an apostrophe to indicate that Glo'ster is an abbreviation.
On the map they just shorted it down with an abbreviation, the station has always been “Gloucester Road”. Jago briefly covered that small curiosity in his video on renamed Circle Line stations
Tara Hill and Pettie Rievaulxry, sound like characters from some spy thriller action novel, maybe agents of SPYTE
Always amazing how...troublesome inter-business and interpersonal rivalries can be to the people as a whole. Very interesting story.
Cracking research as per Jago. Top notch 👍🏻
To be fair, in being a monumental, world-altering edifice shaped largely by petty rivalry and profiteering, the Underground was just holding up a mirror to the Empire itself.
And now I know a lot more about Mark Lane station, one that I'd never heard about until very recently.
And thanks again to the viewer who pointed me in the direction of this video in reply to my recent query about said station 😎👍
The art you used for Watkin and Forbes made them look like a pair of Dickensian villains. Quite appropriate really
Is Watkin Way one of those Roman Roads the Whitewicks Look For ?
No, ‘The Watkin Way’ is actually a revolutionary new diet plan.
@@AtheistOrphan Involves a lot of spite!
Interesting and always fun.
Thanks 😊
4:27 That’s so incredibly based
In your previous video that you did as you said about Tower Hill and Fenchurch Street that the Fleet Line would of gone past. I would imagine that the Fleet Line would of gone from Charing Cross to Thamesmead and London City Airport or Silvertown.
Tower Hill would of had a underground pedestrian walkway connecting from Fenchurch Street to Tower Hill that would of made it lot easier to interchange between National Rail and London Underground.
Same with what Euston Square would of had a underground walkway to Euston main line station.
I always thought the same about Euston Square. I heard rumours it will finally get one when HS2 opens.
Hopefully 🙏👍
I do everything out of spite, I love this 😂
If I ever make it to London I'll take a train to Fenchurch Street Station to see. . . Fenchurch Street Station because not only am I a rail fan I'm a Douglas Adams fan.
What an excellent tale. Bravo 👏🏿
That station built in 2 days, sounds like something on one of those DIY shows on TV presented by Nick Knowles - "And now on Channel 5, The Emergency Railway Station team attempt to build a central London station in two days for the Metropolitan Railway."
1:47 -and indeed, the Engineer John Fowler was rattling around a carriage on his nineteenth-century train line when he drew up plans for his big " CIRCLE " idea, originally calling it the 'Tadpole' line.
Sir Edward Watkin, and his compliant lackeys, could most usefully have taken a trip to Tower of London. A one way trip, there is even, to this day, suitable accommodation available close by.
How much more efficient we are at building railways in the twenty-first century!
All the private company intrigue and rivalry that took place in building the London tube network makes the 1970/80's macerations between the Five BR Regions and BRHQ seem like a streamlined smooth running organisation!
Great video. Don't you just love how Victorians hated each other?
"...built with petty rivalries". Yup. Thats the British way of doing things ...even if you have to get some dodgy Chicago entrepreneur in to make things happen and get up the noses of your rivals. To be fair, in some cases the competition generates innovation. Although, as you've pointed out, sometimes the innovative ideas are just completely bonkers. It is that background that adds lots of colour to your tales.
I'm almost surprised CTY didn't worm his way somehow into this. Or maybe even he couldn't deal with Watkins.
Loved this video!
Might have a spliff up here now I’m next stop ✋
I find the background interesting too Jago. The twists, the turns, the ins and outs. That spite could be a factor in making corporate
decisions way back then staggers me somewhat. Spite is malicious ill will, prompting one to actually cause harm or at the very least
public humiliation. Hmm, not different to today I suppose. I think of those yesteryears as being a little more gracious. Maybe not!
Sir Edward Watkin dreamed of connecting the Great Central via the South Eastern to Europe with a channel tunnel.
So chuffed to have seen a video about this obscure little lost station - perchance a video about British Museum Station next @Jago Hazzard??
The inner circle took a la la la la long long li long long long time to complete
Interestingly, back in the early 90s, when the [ fledgling ] Jamaican reggae-fusion band 'Inner Circle' were brainstorming ideas for a name for the band, the drummer [ who suffered from a 'nascent public-transport system' fetish ] suggested a name, inspired by the very events, as outlined above by Jago. The rest, as they are wont to say, is geography... #GirlIWantToMakeYouSweat
I intend adding "monkey shines" to my repetoire of curious expressions!
Thanks
Talking of other subjects that take your fancy, I wonder if they might still include an occasional revival of the useful beer reviews !
Tower Hill Station and Tower Hill Gateway are needed ,and a link should be made to enable people to reach Fenchurch more easily.
2:40 Was the rivalry due to the second guy being jealous of the first guy's whiskers? Because I am.
I love Sir Edward Watkin!
There are not enough lines to near by stations, like East Grinstead you have to change at East Croydon to get there.
Edward Watkin was a real piece of work
I like Tower Hill's Poppy roundels.
I find I am struggling three stops down the line. I also have enormous potential but the pharmacist has recommended something for that.
I mean, why would Watkin and his Metropolitan chums be bothered about extending a few of Underground railway when they were a big and import Main Line railway trying to stretch their tentacles to Oxford and beyond.
Don't forget that Edward Watkin extended the Great Central Railway (formerly Manchester, Sheffield and Lincoln Rly) to London Marylebone, and intended to continue it to a channel tunnel.
Way ahead of his time. Only trouble was that the GCR never thrived, and investors became disillusioned with Watkin and rightly didn't want to sink their money down another Watkin tunnel.
I dont think it is that the District is less busy on its eastern route - though clearly the LTS/C2C and Elizabeth Line routes provide other eastward connections, its more that space needs to be made for the Hammersmith and City services to escape out to Barking and Back, and the Western Arms of the District throw more trains to the City area than the Eastern Tracks can cope with.
Well, the adult in the room slapping the petty rivals into submission, anyway.
This feels like it should be a gritty historical drama with gratuitous nudity and violence on StarZ