As a Chiswick resident, I think most people would say that Acton Green (despite its name) is just an area of Chiswick, in the same way as Bedford Park, Gunnersbury, Strand-on-the-Green and Grove Park are. Acton Green might be in Ealing borough rather than Hounslow, but has more in common with Chiswick than Acton and also has a W4 postcode rather than Acton's W3.
As a former Chiswick resident (until 2020), I would entirely agree. Acton is everything north(west) of the Overground line, and this is most definitely south of it. Indeed, the 94 bus has its terminus at Acton Green, but no-one would ever describe it as a route that serves Acton!
In the late 19C Chiswick was becoming a smart residential refuge for the haut bourgeoisie with a 'villagey' and ruverside cachet; whereas Acton was more industrial, caught in a tangle of rail lines and including streets of small terraced houses which look more like Lowry's industrial North. What set the seal on this was Jonathan Carr's development of Bedford Park, Chiswick as an arty 'villadom' community. The Metropolitan District Railway came through in 1869 and the much admired garden suburb was established by 1880. Changing the local station's name advertised the area's status upgrade.
Acton Green Common is the name of the park outside and to the left of the station, running along the north side of the tube line. Hence the sign in the station showing left to Acton Green. If you walk through that park you're going back along the north side of the tube line to Turnham Green station. On the south side of the line, outside Turnham Green station is Chiswick Common. Turnham Green itself (the park that is) is on the High Street between Turnham Green station and Chiswick Park station.
Have a look at the train service frequency before you move - it is pretty poor as more than half the District trains deviate off to Richmond instead. Often it's quicker to walk from Gunnersbury.
Not familiar with this station at all, but those glazed bricks do seem to impart a very nice quality of light inside the ticket hall. Shout-out too to Pure Barberism for continuing the tradition of knowingly corny barber-shop puns!
Strongly recommend visiting Gunnersbury Triangle Nature Reserve opposite the station - a triangle of green space between three train lines, which was saved from redevelopment by local residents in the 1980s. It's a fascinating spot, because it actually wasn't very ecologically valuable at first, but it's now become a really important natural wetland / nature area, run by the London Wildlife Trust and LB Hounslow. You're also just down the road from Turnham Green (the actual green, not the station, which is actually in Chiswick Back Common!).
Back in the 90s a District Line train leaving Gunnersbury for Turnham Green got stranded on the triangle when a points failure sent the back half up the Overground track.
Chiswick Park has a particular place in my Underground recollections. In the late 1960s I was working in one of the shops down the hill towards Chiswick High Road (Cato's hardware shops for anyone who remembers). Heading for home one evening I happened to glance up as I was approaching the station and saw an ex-GWR pannier tank passing through on the westbound local. I thought I was dreaming. It was only after I started working on the Underground in 1976 that I learnt that it was real. A balanced presentation certainly, but perhaps only half rounded.🤣
As a boy Turnham Green was my local station. So this video was quite emotional for me. I always felt the two stations were misnamed. Chiswick Park is only a stone’s throw from Turnham Green and Turnham Green station comes out dead opposite Acton Common. Turnham Green is also famous for the Civil War battle, where the King’s army were stopped on their way to London. They had been very naughty in Brentford and were not welcome in Chiswick. As I understand it, in those days Turnham Green itself was much larger and stretched to Chiswick Back Common. Most of the battle took place over an area between Back Common and Chiswick High Road.
To further confuse, I see that, just down the road from Chiswick Park station is a green space called Turnham Green, while to the east is a green space called Chiswick Common, which is in turn rather close to... Turnham Green station.
As a US person, Chiswick Park's modern architecture has a lot of old world charm, round with a tower, the brick that makes it warm and friendly, concrete canopies with the wooden form marks in the concrete. I think the architect was brilliant, and it looks English to me. Gare de Brest looks French, but it also looks like it could have been inspired by Chiswick Park and they did a good job of that too.
To those of us from this side of the Pond, it still looks modernist rather than "old-world". Illustratibng the comment that to an American, 100 years is a long time, (and to the British 100 miles is a long way).
@@norbitonflyer5625 ~ Maybe it would be better to say Chiswick Park it looks great and I think the French stole the design concept and built Gare de Brest.
There's a key difference between the UK and the US. You Americans think a hundred years is a long time. Whereas we Brits think a hundred miles is a long way!
If you are a great fan of shuttered concrete, you could 'pop' over to France and admire the remains of the Atlantic wall to your hearts content. Admittedly quite a bit has succumbed to graffiti but there is an awful lot of it.
As a native New Yorker, I actually appreciate the concrete aspect of the elevated platforms and canopy! Seeing the Art Deco style utilized for an elevated station actually reminds me of a pretty famous station in NYC. In the borough of Brooklyn, there's an elevated station called Smith/9th Street Station. Most folks know it for one particular view from the end of the Brooklyn-bound platform. Looking west, there's a great panoramic view of Lower Manhattan that photographers just love. For nearly 30 years, it was the go-to station to get great sunrise shots of The Twin Towers.
As I understand it, the general plan for the stations along this route was that only the ones serving the Piccadilly trains would be rebuilt and given the Holden[esque] treatment (which is why South Ealing got missed out to begin with, as the original intention was to let the Piccadilly trains pass it and only District trains would stop there). So Chiswick Park only ended up like this because (as you mentioned) they had to demolish the old station in order to widen the line, and therefore it had to be rebuilt as part of that project anyway; if not for that, the previous station might still be with us.
You are becoming the go to authority on style and taste of Underground (and above ground) architecture. I feel I could attempt an MA on the subject citing your work. I genuinely thought nothing of these brick built stations until you started gently to educate me. Congratulations.
Late 80s I used to visit my girlfriend who had a room ovelooking the eastbound platform. I remember waving to her as I caught the last train, a rare Picaddilly line stopping service to catch my connection for Stratford at Holborn.
My wife was a student at the LSE in the 1990s while I remained in the US earning her tuition. She always got off at Chiswick Park to go shopping on the high street. I remember the first time I visited her there and she took me through that station how I fell completely in love with the design. Is there still a Sainsbury's nearby? It wouldn't surprise me if it no longer was as I know how dynamic London can be.
Sainsburys is still there - and from the station you would still enter it by walking through it's car park. (I worked in Chiswick in the late 80s, early 90s, and it's the same building that it was then... - although I believe it's had a bit of a rearrangement on the inside. Pretty sure the entrance was different to how it was in the 90s. I no longer live/work in the area - was only there to go and have Thai food at a pub...)
Interesting to see the driver, at 1:13, had his door open!! Health & Safety nightmare if you ask me! Thank you for pointing out the Tower Hill name change on the direction board, it was so well done as to make the change almost invisible to the untrained eye! 😊
It's a hidden gem. For years I'd caught a brief glimpse of it on the way to Richmond, never having had the occasion to visit Chiswick Park itself. Until a few years ago when, fighting off symptoms of flu on a cold evening in February, I found myself there waiting for an eastbound train. And waiting, And waiting, while several Piccadilly trains rushed through nonstop. But even then I could wonder at. the architecture which is every bit as good as Arnos Grove though less celebrated.
I live over 300 miles away and have only visited London a handful of times over the last 45 years but I find your videos fascinating and informative. Thanks.
The New York Central had many stations in a mini-Grand Central manner! Yonkers,Rochester[New York,not England],Albany(old station),and others! The Beau-Arts style was/is generous on windows,and with brickwork,it really pretty handsome! Just a little excursion from America! Thanks Jago,your architectural jaunts are always interesting 😉! Thank you 😇!
A favourite picture I've seen of Chiswick Park station with a train of Q stock which would have been contemporary with it. The oerfect underground scene!
I've added Chiswick Park to my list of stations I've only ever passed through but never got off the train to explore and must visit for a wander one day.
Another thing I find fascinating about this station is that the platforms almost hover above the landscape - they're concrete structures that feel like they've grown out of the ground, and now don't even touch it, with gaps between the platform and the ground underneath. Thanks for doing this video, it's an amazing station, and this is coming from an architect.
The main problem for me with Chiswick park station is that it is in a place that I have never needed to go to. But I admit it must be convenient for people that do need to go there.
Back to my old stomping ground. Not sure I ever went in that station because it was zone 3 & really the walk to Turnham Green wasn't that far for a student!
Although it’s only just within the border of Ealing, I have always felt that the architecture of Chiswick Park makes it feel more Ealing than Chiswick. This is mostly due to Chiswick having an almost village like feel to it (well as village like as you can get in Zone 3 of London) whilst Ealing has a distinctly more more suburban feel and has many buildings in a similar style to Chiswick Park
Well, I blow a raspberry at those experts. I think it’s a fine looking station - love the tower (which, as other contributors have said, should have a clock!)
We British are good at obfuscation. The only definite pieces of information which apply to locations in the UK are their postcodes (which have an associated postal town) and their council ward, from which you can derive the local council and also the parliamentary constituency. Otherwise, the notion that a particular location is in a specific place is often highly contentious. In this specific instance, you can draw a box 1200x600 metres on the map; inside the box are four green spaces - Gunnersbury Triangle Nature Reserve, Turnham Green, Acton Green Common and Chiswick Common. Many people would claim that Gunnersbury, Turnham Green, Acton and Chiswick are clearly defined areas of London.
I digress:- I recall when the London Borough of Hounslow wanted to close the Chiswick Library and force its users to go to the one in the Treaty Centre. The Chiswick residents were up in arms and wanted to break away from the Hounslow Council. For years, Chiswick residents campaigned to have the Piccadilly line trains stop at Chiswick Park station. I believe that London Transport experimented with this but could not justify it in the long term. Piccadilly Line trains stop at Turnham Green late at night during weekends. The Sainsbury's supermarket is still there. At the time it was being constructed, I told a friend that the management would regret not building a second floor at the same time. This second floor would have now come in useful as many supermarkets expanded to superstores and have a Food and Pharmacy Department on the Ground Floor, and a Clothes /Electronics /Household/ Motor department on the Second Floor. Sainsbury's is cramming everything into the one floor they have although they have closed the fish-mongers and restaurant. On the other hand, M&S closed their clothing department to become a food only supermarket.
Jago, I don't know what your reference sources are for your look at these stations, but I can recommend 'Bright underground spaces: the railway stations of Charles Holden' by David Lawrence.
There can never be enough stations with Acton in them. I was at Chiswick Park about three weeks ago, the concrete is looking a bit tired. It could do with a lick of paint.
I always thought the tower was a chimney of an adjacent factory - perhaps part of the nearby Acton Works. It is a nice inviting interior in the ticket hall though. Certainly nicer than the rather grim platforms. You can smell the delicate aroma of wee from those shelters from here.
From the point of view of a mere user, Chiswick Park is frustrating: obviously it's well used enough as a local area station to keep it open, but it's hopeless as an interchange (10 minute walk to South Acton or Gunnersbury), not close enough to the obvious site for an interchange with the Overground - and at some point, the West London Orbital - but too close to make a new station there a practial proposition. Chiswick Park, with its 10 minute service seems a long wait, while the Piccadilly trains sail through every three minutes or so, and if you try to get to Richmond by changing at Turnham Green, as well as being a long dog's leg, the connections there always seem badly timed. Still - you have given me some good ideas of how to fill the time if I get stuck at Chiswick Park!
I agree. It used to have a licensed bar. I think it was the only one on the Underground. There is also a stream running diagonally over the tracks in a pipe. Well worth one of JH’s videos.
@@52Royston Might have been the only one with a bar on the platform, but I remember Baker Street used to have a pub inside the ticket barrier. Like the Sloane Square one, sadly long gone. Not sure if there are any others.
Passed through this station so many times on the way to Sainsbury's. Sometimes it's frustrating to sit on the platform and see so many Piccadilly line trains passing by and no sign of the District line trains yet. I had a feeling, that walking to the Acton town would be a faster way.
As a Gateline assistant, I was interested to learn the Gatelines or automatic ticket gates were interested as far back as 1964. Fare evaders are still with regrettably.
The tower frustrates me as if the signage were lit in some way, it would be a much better landmark and would attract more customers to the station. An illuminated roundel would make the station look more inviting at night: although only a few metres from Chiswick High Road, its location isn’t particularly obvious.
Great post as always, JH. I recall a vinyl LP record in my youth by The Moody Blues by the same name as this post. If that reference was your intent, nice touch! Cheers.
Doubtful. It reminds me of the railway station in Weert, the Netherlands - arguably, one of the prettiest railway stations in the Netherlands, and named as such by NS (Dutch Railways) in 2008. It dates back to 1914, and is also built in brick. It has an octagonal tower, which shows the city's crest. The reason for this tower seems to be because, well, why not?
Chiswick Park station is another one that has such marvellous design and characteristics just like other London Underground stations that have been built. I haven’t been to Chiswick Park but I have heard it is a nice place in West London.
The imprint of the grain from the wood forms on the concrete is a feature I enjoy occasionally finding. There a concrete tunnel approach somewhere in Norfolk or Portsmouth, Virginia, USA, (I'm not sure where we were relative to the boundaries that day) where the grain pattern is particularly pronounced even through some paint having been slathered on.
Very interesting video - thanks so much. I’m a regular visitor to Chiswick Park to pick up sone of the best sushi around at Yuma, just two doors down. Looking forward to your next video _ have subscribed. 👍👍
I think the tower's a good idea - I was at North Greenwich last week and the station isn't at all obvious. A tower in the same style as the station's architecture with the 'Underground' roundel afixed to it's summit would have made it more obvious !
Perhaps these circular and semi-circular designs influenced the design of Canada Water station decades later. Bigger panes sans green paint and no brick tower.
There's a very fine line between the style of those concrete canopies and brutalism. However one style is infinitely better looking than the other, I think it's not hard to guess which one I'm talking about. Btw "I'll see you all again very soon FOR ANOTHER TALE FROM THE TUBE" Mr. Hazzard 😂
I watched a video not long ago in which someone made predictions about the future of the underground. One of those predictions was the Piccadilly Line taking over the Ealing Broadway branch of the District Line. Except he never speculated on what would happen to Chiswick Park were that to happen.
The green paint on the window frames looks the same color as copper patina--I wonder if that was part of the effect they were going for. The concrete canopies look almost like a proto-DC Metro touch.
Thank you for another insightful video. I've not been to Chiswick Park but how interesting to see a "Holden like" station with some brutalist features. To be echoed by buildings such as the National Theatre many years later. Out of interest does the tower (which I agree nicely balances the central rotunda) have anything in it, a water tank perhaps, or is it purely decorative? Best wishes :^)
When i go to Chiswick Park i always get the feeling that there is something wrong. It is as though it was once great but that since oyster card barriers the place has lost something, like walking around a stately home that is now a museum with no one living there, a bit soulless without people. Difficult to describe but you feel it should be greater.
@@chrisstephens6673 There did use to be a coffee stall immediately as you go through the ticket barrier. Not sure if it's still there, it may not have survived Covid.
I love Charles Holden/Stanley Heaps work, and CP is a fine example. What do experts know? Always reminds me of the question, what is an exert? An”ex” is a has been and a “spurt” is a drip under pressure!
I'm trying to learn all the London tube stations names by repeatedly playing this stupid online quiz until I painfully get better. It's really nice to be able to put a... face? on all those stations I can name but have never been to.
It's a strange station. It seems both too big for passenger numbers yet also only half built - as if there should be not just an island platform, but platforms on the Richmond branch accessed around the tower too. And perhaps it should actually be a few hundred metres along - between where the current Overground (to Richmond) & what may be the Overground to Brentford cross the Piccadilly & District. Tho then it'd either be a relocated South Acton - or yet another Acton station (Green?)...
Развлечения
The view of the French station at the end reinforces the thought I had that the tower should have had a clock on it.
It's because they didn't have a roundel (called a bullseye then)to put on their tower !!Okay probably not.
Has anyone ever tried putting clock hands on a London Transport roundel?
@@ricktownend9144 Yes,Google London Underground wall clock.
As a Chiswick resident, I think most people would say that Acton Green (despite its name) is just an area of Chiswick, in the same way as Bedford Park, Gunnersbury, Strand-on-the-Green and Grove Park are. Acton Green might be in Ealing borough rather than Hounslow, but has more in common with Chiswick than Acton and also has a W4 postcode rather than Acton's W3.
Completely agree
As a former Chiswick resident (until 2020), I would entirely agree. Acton is everything north(west) of the Overground line, and this is most definitely south of it.
Indeed, the 94 bus has its terminus at Acton Green, but no-one would ever describe it as a route that serves Acton!
In the late 19C Chiswick was becoming a smart residential refuge for the haut bourgeoisie with a 'villagey' and ruverside cachet; whereas Acton was more industrial, caught in a tangle of rail lines and including streets of small terraced houses which look more like Lowry's industrial North.
What set the seal on this was Jonathan Carr's development of Bedford Park, Chiswick as an arty 'villadom' community. The Metropolitan District Railway came through in 1869 and the much admired garden suburb was established by 1880. Changing the local station's name advertised the area's status upgrade.
Acton Green Common is the name of the park outside and to the left of the station, running along the north side of the tube line. Hence the sign in the station showing left to Acton Green.
If you walk through that park you're going back along the north side of the tube line to Turnham Green station. On the south side of the line, outside Turnham Green station is Chiswick Common.
Turnham Green itself (the park that is) is on the High Street between Turnham Green station and Chiswick Park station.
Chiswick Park has just taken the lead in my "where I might move solely on how the tube station looks" list from Uxbridge
Have a look at the train service frequency before you move - it is pretty poor as more than half the District trains deviate off to Richmond instead. Often it's quicker to walk from Gunnersbury.
I used to live just round the corner from Chiswick Park. Lovely area, great for families, bloody expensive!
Not familiar with this station at all, but those glazed bricks do seem to impart a very nice quality of light inside the ticket hall. Shout-out too to Pure Barberism for continuing the tradition of knowingly corny barber-shop puns!
There has to be a list of puns in barber shop names. I live in Melbourne and it alone has dozens. Sadly no list on Wikipaedia. 🤥
@@Dave_Sisson There's probably a phone app that can generate them now!
Strongly recommend visiting Gunnersbury Triangle Nature Reserve opposite the station - a triangle of green space between three train lines, which was saved from redevelopment by local residents in the 1980s. It's a fascinating spot, because it actually wasn't very ecologically valuable at first, but it's now become a really important natural wetland / nature area, run by the London Wildlife Trust and LB Hounslow. You're also just down the road from Turnham Green (the actual green, not the station, which is actually in Chiswick Back Common!).
Back in the 90s a District Line train leaving Gunnersbury for Turnham Green got stranded on the triangle when a points failure sent the back half up the Overground track.
Chiswick Park has a particular place in my Underground recollections. In the late 1960s I was working in one of the shops down the hill towards Chiswick High Road (Cato's hardware shops for anyone who remembers). Heading for home one evening I happened to glance up as I was approaching the station and saw an ex-GWR pannier tank passing through on the westbound local. I thought I was dreaming. It was only after I started working on the Underground in 1976 that I learnt that it was real.
A balanced presentation certainly, but perhaps only half rounded.🤣
As a boy Turnham Green was my local station. So this video was quite emotional for me. I always felt the two stations were misnamed. Chiswick Park is only a stone’s throw from Turnham Green and Turnham Green station comes out dead opposite Acton Common. Turnham Green is also famous for the Civil War battle, where the King’s army were stopped on their way to London. They had been very naughty in Brentford and were not welcome in Chiswick. As I understand it, in those days Turnham Green itself was much larger and stretched to Chiswick Back Common. Most of the battle took place over an area between Back Common and Chiswick High Road.
I imagine painting all those window frames green must have been quite a pane...
To further confuse, I see that, just down the road from Chiswick Park station is a green space called Turnham Green, while to the east is a green space called Chiswick Common, which is in turn rather close to... Turnham Green station.
As a US person, Chiswick Park's modern architecture has a lot of old world charm, round with a tower, the brick that makes it warm and friendly, concrete canopies with the wooden form marks in the concrete. I think the architect was brilliant, and it looks English to me. Gare de Brest looks French, but it also looks like it could have been inspired by Chiswick Park and they did a good job of that too.
To those of us from this side of the Pond, it still looks modernist rather than "old-world". Illustratibng the comment that to an American, 100 years is a long time, (and to the British 100 miles is a long way).
@@norbitonflyer5625 ~ Maybe it would be better to say Chiswick Park it looks great and I think the French stole the design concept and built Gare de Brest.
There's a key difference between the UK and the US. You Americans think a hundred years is a long time. Whereas we Brits think a hundred miles is a long way!
Nice to see shuttered concrete that hasn't had the indignity of being painted.
@jappedut would disagree with you as they suggest '... the concrete could do with some white paint.' 😂
If you are a great fan of shuttered concrete, you could 'pop' over to France and admire the remains of the Atlantic wall to your hearts content. Admittedly quite a bit has succumbed to graffiti but there is an awful lot of it.
As a native New Yorker, I actually appreciate the concrete aspect of the elevated platforms and canopy! Seeing the Art Deco style utilized for an elevated station actually reminds me of a pretty famous station in NYC.
In the borough of Brooklyn, there's an elevated station called Smith/9th Street Station. Most folks know it for one particular view from the end of the Brooklyn-bound platform. Looking west, there's a great panoramic view of Lower Manhattan that photographers just love. For nearly 30 years, it was the go-to station to get great sunrise shots of The Twin Towers.
I love the enclosures for the benches - such thought and delightfully done
As I understand it, the general plan for the stations along this route was that only the ones serving the Piccadilly trains would be rebuilt and given the Holden[esque] treatment (which is why South Ealing got missed out to begin with, as the original intention was to let the Piccadilly trains pass it and only District trains would stop there). So Chiswick Park only ended up like this because (as you mentioned) they had to demolish the old station in order to widen the line, and therefore it had to be rebuilt as part of that project anyway; if not for that, the previous station might still be with us.
You are becoming the go to authority on style and taste of Underground (and above ground) architecture. I feel I could attempt an MA on the subject citing your work. I genuinely thought nothing of these brick built stations until you started gently to educate me. Congratulations.
Late 80s I used to visit my girlfriend who had a room ovelooking the eastbound platform. I remember waving to her as I caught the last train, a rare Picaddilly line stopping service to catch my connection for Stratford at Holborn.
I love that place name (or is it a slogan?) "Turn'em green!". It begs the question "What colour are they now?" I'll get my coat.
My wife was a student at the LSE in the 1990s while I remained in the US earning her tuition. She always got off at Chiswick Park to go shopping on the high street. I remember the first time I visited her there and she took me through that station how I fell completely in love with the design.
Is there still a Sainsbury's nearby? It wouldn't surprise me if it no longer was as I know how dynamic London can be.
You must have missed it. In the background at 2:05. Looks newer than 1990s to me but I'm no architecturologist so maybe it's the same one.
Sainsburys is still there - and from the station you would still enter it by walking through it's car park. (I worked in Chiswick in the late 80s, early 90s, and it's the same building that it was then... - although I believe it's had a bit of a rearrangement on the inside. Pretty sure the entrance was different to how it was in the 90s. I no longer live/work in the area - was only there to go and have Thai food at a pub...)
Brutalist architecture: I absolutely agree. Which is why I took great delight in blowing it up in a novel I wrote over a decade ago.
Interesting to see the driver, at 1:13, had his door open!! Health & Safety nightmare if you ask me!
Thank you for pointing out the Tower Hill name change on the direction board, it was so well done as to make the change almost invisible to the untrained eye! 😊
It's a hidden gem. For years I'd caught a brief glimpse of it on the way to Richmond, never having had the occasion to visit Chiswick Park itself. Until a few years ago when, fighting off symptoms of flu on a cold evening in February, I found myself there waiting for an eastbound train. And waiting, And waiting, while several Piccadilly trains rushed through nonstop. But even then I could wonder at. the architecture which is every bit as good as Arnos Grove though less celebrated.
Must be Sunday night! Better crack out the tea, crumpets, tales from the tube just dropped!
0:40 What can I say? The authorities find one name and simply ‘Acton’ it without much deliberation.
Perhaps they were Acton on impulse
@@austenhamilton7312 ... taking their cue from Act(i)on Man.
I live over 300 miles away and have only visited London a handful of times over the last 45 years but I find your videos fascinating and informative. Thanks.
I passed through this station just this afternoon: I noticed the concrete canopies, and thought the rest of the station must also be pretty special!
I lived in Chiswick for about a year, and I haven't used this station even once.
The New York Central had many stations in a mini-Grand Central manner! Yonkers,Rochester[New York,not England],Albany(old station),and others! The Beau-Arts style was/is generous on windows,and with brickwork,it really pretty handsome! Just a little excursion from America! Thanks Jago,your architectural jaunts are always interesting 😉! Thank you 😇!
A favourite picture I've seen of Chiswick Park station with a train of Q stock which would have been contemporary with it. The oerfect underground scene!
It's hard to believe how underrated that iconic stock is.
I've added Chiswick Park to my list of stations I've only ever passed through but never got off the train to explore and must visit for a wander one day.
Chiswick Park is one of my favourite stations on the Underground... love the video Jago
Thank you for your “balanced” view on this iconic station. 👏👏👍😀
Another one of those interesting stations, that nobody other than residents will ever use!
My favourite underground station architecturally speaking.
Another thing I find fascinating about this station is that the platforms almost hover above the landscape - they're concrete structures that feel like they've grown out of the ground, and now don't even touch it, with gaps between the platform and the ground underneath. Thanks for doing this video, it's an amazing station, and this is coming from an architect.
Another to add to my to visit list, thanks
That is a great station! Thanks again for your very informative videos!
The main problem for me with Chiswick park station is that it is in a place that I have never needed to go to. But I admit it must be convenient for people that do need to go there.
Back to my old stomping ground. Not sure I ever went in that station because it was zone 3 & really the walk to Turnham Green wasn't that far for a student!
I used to live a few minutes walk from Chiswick Park Station.
Although it’s only just within the border of Ealing, I have always felt that the architecture of Chiswick Park makes it feel more Ealing than Chiswick. This is mostly due to Chiswick having an almost village like feel to it (well as village like as you can get in Zone 3 of London) whilst Ealing has a distinctly more more suburban feel and has many buildings in a similar style to Chiswick Park
Well, I blow a raspberry at those experts. I think it’s a fine looking station - love the tower (which, as other contributors have said, should have a clock!)
I love Chiswick Park station. Before Covid i was a regular visitor. Ill be back passing through next month
in today episode of...."A station named after a place they are NOT in..."
We British are good at obfuscation. The only definite pieces of information which apply to locations in the UK are their postcodes (which have an associated postal town) and their council ward, from which you can derive the local council and also the parliamentary constituency. Otherwise, the notion that a particular location is in a specific place is often highly contentious.
In this specific instance, you can draw a box 1200x600 metres on the map; inside the box are four green spaces - Gunnersbury Triangle Nature Reserve, Turnham Green, Acton Green Common and Chiswick Common. Many people would claim that Gunnersbury, Turnham Green, Acton and Chiswick are clearly defined areas of London.
I greatly enjoyed this fantastic look at Chiswick Park...😊🇬🇧
"Mind if we call you Acton. Just to be clear."
I digress:-
I recall when the London Borough of Hounslow wanted to close the Chiswick Library and force its users to go to the one in the Treaty Centre. The Chiswick residents were up in arms and wanted to break away from the Hounslow Council.
For years, Chiswick residents campaigned to have the Piccadilly line trains stop at Chiswick Park station. I believe that London Transport experimented with this but could not justify it in the long term. Piccadilly Line trains stop at Turnham Green late at night during weekends.
The Sainsbury's supermarket is still there. At the time it was being constructed, I told a friend that the management would regret not building a second floor at the same time. This second floor would have now come in useful as many supermarkets expanded to superstores and have a Food and Pharmacy Department on the Ground Floor, and a Clothes /Electronics /Household/ Motor department on the Second Floor. Sainsbury's is cramming everything into the one floor they have although they have closed the fish-mongers and restaurant.
On the other hand, M&S closed their clothing department to become a food only supermarket.
Jago, I don't know what your reference sources are for your look at these stations, but I can recommend 'Bright underground spaces: the railway stations of Charles Holden' by David Lawrence.
There can never be enough stations with Acton in them.
I was at Chiswick Park about three weeks ago, the concrete is looking a bit tired. It could do with a lick of paint.
I love the standard Holden Elements in stations. If it was square, it would look boring.
It's a beautiful station, and I would think that it would look right at home as a Montreal Metro station.
Love it! Thanks for making the vid 👍
Love the brutalist board-formed concrete canopies. The tower should have a clock! Great video as always.
Agree with both.
The tower as designed was originally much taller and topped off with a large, neon lit globe.
@@eattherich9215 nice
All aboard !
Great video only used that station last week
I always thought the tower was a chimney of an adjacent factory - perhaps part of the nearby Acton Works. It is a nice inviting interior in the ticket hall though. Certainly nicer than the rather grim platforms. You can smell the delicate aroma of wee from those shelters from here.
Brilliant video sir!
From the point of view of a mere user, Chiswick Park is frustrating: obviously it's well used enough as a local area station to keep it open, but it's hopeless as an interchange (10 minute walk to South Acton or Gunnersbury), not close enough to the obvious site for an interchange with the Overground - and at some point, the West London Orbital - but too close to make a new station there a practial proposition. Chiswick Park, with its 10 minute service seems a long wait, while the Piccadilly trains sail through every three minutes or so, and if you try to get to Richmond by changing at Turnham Green, as well as being a long dog's leg, the connections there always seem badly timed. Still - you have given me some good ideas of how to fill the time if I get stuck at Chiswick Park!
I would love to see a video on Sloane Square Station. I've always wondered why they built a big grey building on top of the station.
I agree. It used to have a licensed bar. I think it was the only one on the Underground. There is also a stream running diagonally over the tracks in a pipe. Well worth one of JH’s videos.
@@52Royston Might have been the only one with a bar on the platform, but I remember Baker Street used to have a pub inside the ticket barrier. Like the Sloane Square one, sadly long gone. Not sure if there are any others.
Passed through this station so many times on the way to Sainsbury's. Sometimes it's frustrating to sit on the platform and see so many Piccadilly line trains passing by and no sign of the District line trains yet. I had a feeling, that walking to the Acton town would be a faster way.
Squashed Up Against The Viaduct - well that's one way of describing a rather "interesting" friday night out
😂😂😂
As a Gateline assistant, I was interested to learn the Gatelines or automatic ticket gates were interested as far back as 1964. Fare evaders are still with regrettably.
The tower frustrates me as if the signage were lit in some way, it would be a much better landmark and would attract more customers to the station. An illuminated roundel would make the station look more inviting at night: although only a few metres from Chiswick High Road, its location isn’t particularly obvious.
Another excellent film about a station and only 8.3 miles from Tufnell Park Station 😂
Great post as always, JH. I recall a vinyl LP record in my youth by The Moody Blues by the same name as this post. If that reference was your intent, nice touch! Cheers.
I fear it was coincidence…
Hi Jago, does the tower have any function, other than decorative?
Doubtful.
It reminds me of the railway station in Weert, the Netherlands - arguably, one of the prettiest railway stations in the Netherlands, and named as such by NS (Dutch Railways) in 2008. It dates back to 1914, and is also built in brick. It has an octagonal tower, which shows the city's crest. The reason for this tower seems to be because, well, why not?
2:59 the housing block on top of clapham south also has green frames, i guess for this reason also?
Great video thanks
You are the Acton to my Acton. And my other Acton as well for that matter. Acton.
Chiswick Park station is another one that has such marvellous design and characteristics just like other London Underground stations that have been built. I haven’t been to Chiswick Park but I have heard it is a nice place in West London.
Great video Jago 👍
The imprint of the grain from the wood forms on the concrete is a feature I enjoy occasionally finding. There a concrete tunnel approach somewhere in Norfolk or Portsmouth, Virginia, USA, (I'm not sure where we were relative to the boundaries that day) where the grain pattern is particularly pronounced even through some paint having been slathered on.
Very interesting video - thanks so much. I’m a regular visitor to Chiswick Park to pick up sone of the best sushi around at Yuma, just two doors down. Looking forward to your next video _ have subscribed. 👍👍
Perhaps you could cover some of the ex-LT&SR District/ Hammersmith line stations in the east sometime?
That is something I plan to do. Their histories are interesting.
My goodness the French do know how to design a striking railway station. Some of them are quite beautiful.
I think the tower's a good idea - I was at North Greenwich last week and the station isn't at all obvious.
A tower in the same style as the station's architecture with the 'Underground' roundel afixed to it's summit would have made it more obvious !
Perhaps these circular and semi-circular designs influenced the design of Canada Water station decades later. Bigger panes sans green paint and no brick tower.
Beautiful glazed *black* bricks and skylights.
There's a very fine line between the style of those concrete canopies and brutalism. However one style is infinitely better looking than the other, I think it's not hard to guess which one I'm talking about.
Btw "I'll see you all again very soon FOR ANOTHER TALE FROM THE TUBE" Mr. Hazzard 😂
You are the glazed brick to my plank cast concrete.
I can't wait for Jago to come to Northolt and make a video 😁
That transition back from Gare de Brest…? 👨🏻🍳's 💋
Thank you! It was a last-minute editing choice.
Fine video Jago....
To me, the green paint on the window bars suggests patinated copper
@@JP_TaVeryMuch I don’t see anything going up to a point on Chiswick Station - it’s flat-roofed 😉
I watched a video not long ago in which someone made predictions about the future of the underground. One of those predictions was the Piccadilly Line taking over the Ealing Broadway branch of the District Line. Except he never speculated on what would happen to Chiswick Park were that to happen.
good ol Chizzy P
The green paint on the window frames looks the same color as copper patina--I wonder if that was part of the effect they were going for.
The concrete canopies look almost like a proto-DC Metro touch.
Thank you for another insightful video. I've not been to Chiswick Park but how interesting to see a "Holden like" station with some brutalist features. To be echoed by buildings such as the National Theatre many years later. Out of interest does the tower (which I agree nicely balances the central rotunda) have anything in it, a water tank perhaps, or is it purely decorative? Best wishes :^)
As an outsider, we just never know whether to pronounce the 'W' or not.
I like it, and thought the window frames were bronze.
Chiswick Park definitely influenced Gare De Brest. Chiswick Park is simply genius
I must admit the concrete canopies generally have lasted but they seem more substantial than they need be. Maybe I just got the moody blues about it.
I thought the window mullions were copper flashing. That'd would have been a nice flair for a few years. Nope, greenpaint. Ohwell.
When i go to Chiswick Park i always get the feeling that there is something wrong. It is as though it was once great but that since oyster card barriers the place has lost something, like walking around a stately home that is now a museum with no one living there, a bit soulless without people. Difficult to describe but you feel it should be greater.
Maybe redevelop the old ticket office into a hip coffeehouse with a few tables & chairs in front to bring life into the station hall.
@@1258-Eckhart possibly but is it busy enough to bother? And would the brashness of a coffee shop ruin the old world feel?
@@chrisstephens6673 There did use to be a coffee stall immediately as you go through the ticket barrier. Not sure if it's still there, it may not have survived Covid.
I love Charles Holden/Stanley Heaps work, and CP is a fine example. What do experts know? Always reminds me of the question, what is an exert? An”ex” is a has been and a “spurt” is a drip under pressure!
The tower does really look like a chimney...could have done with windows.
I'm trying to learn all the London tube stations names by repeatedly playing this stupid online quiz until I painfully get better. It's really nice to be able to put a... face? on all those stations I can name but have never been to.
Then you'd be an ideal candidate for BBC Radio 4's "Mornington Crescent" game on the show "I'm sorry I haven't a Clue"'.
50/50⭐⭐
Interesting how 2b Bollo Lane (just nearby) also has a rounded front. Maybe to match the station?
No one ever got called an expert saying nice things.
It's a strange station. It seems both too big for passenger numbers yet also only half built - as if there should be not just an island platform, but platforms on the Richmond branch accessed around the tower too. And perhaps it should actually be a few hundred metres along - between where the current Overground (to Richmond) & what may be the Overground to Brentford cross the Piccadilly & District. Tho then it'd either be a relocated South Acton - or yet another Acton station (Green?)...