Finchley Central tube station

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Finchley Central
Location
Place	Finchley
Local authority	London Borough of Barnet
Operations
Managed by	London Underground
Platforms in use	3
Annual entry/exit	4.317 million
Transport for London
Zone	4
History
1867 1940 1941	Opened (GNR) Started (Northern Line) Ended (LNER)
Transport for London List of London stations: Underground \| National Rail

Finchley Central tube station is a London Underground station in the Finchley Central area of north London.

The station is on the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line, between West Finchley and East Finchley stations and is the junction for the short branch to Mill Hill East station. The station is above ground and is in Travelcard Zone 4.

1 History
2 Gallery
3 Local information
4 Transport links
5 External links

[edit] History

Finchley Central station was built by the Edgware, Highgate and London Railway (EH&LR) and was originally opened as Finchley & Hendon on 22 August 1867 by the Great Northern Railway (GNR) (which had taken over the EH&LR) in what was then rural Middlesex. The station was on a line that ran from Finsbury Park to Edgware via Highgate. A branch line from this station was constructed by the GNR to High Barnet and opened on 1 April 1872. The station was renamed to Finchley (Church End) on 1 February 1894.

After the 1921 Railways Act created the Big Four railway companies, the line was, from 1923, part of the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER). The section of the High Barnet branch north of East Finchley was incorporated into the London Underground network through the "Northern Heights" project begun in the late 1930s. The station took on its current name on 1 April 1940 and was first served by Northern Line trains on 14 April 1940.

The station still retains much of its original Victorian architectural character today and, as one of the two remaining original stations, on the Edgware, Highgate and London Railway (along with Mill Hill East), it is one of the oldest parts of the Underground system, predating the first tunnelled section of the Northern Line (the City & South London Railway) by more than twenty years.

[edit] Gallery

Main entrance

Platforms

Station Road entrance

[edit] Local information

The station has two entrances. The main one, which leads straight into the ticket hall, is from a road which for many years lacked a name, but on November 13, 2006 was named Chaville Way after one of Barnet's twin towns. Chaville Way is a turning off the main road just where it changes its name from Ballards Lane to Regents Park Road (opposite the end of Nether Street), and leads down to the station car park. The other entrance is in Station Road, a turning off Regents Park Road. Someone entering through the main entrance can walk in a straight line through the ticket hall and ticket barriers, across a covered footbridge over the railway (where there are flights of stairs leading down to the platforms) and out the other entrance into Station Road. There is one flight to the southbound platform, and two to the northbound ones (though one of the latter has been closed for several years).

An unusual aspect of its layout, with two entrances yet one ticket hall, is that it is one of the few stations on the London Underground that does not have fully gated access, yet it does have a line of ticket barriers which, when they are set to be closed, requires people from the Station Road entrance to pass beyond the ticket barriers to get to a ticket machine. At the Station Road entrance, there is just a pair of Oyster card validators.

There is currently no disabled access to the platforms, which must be reached by flights of stairs. However, the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has announced that Finchley Central will be one of a number of stations on the Northern Line which will be upgraded to allow disabled access.

The station has three platforms. Platform 3 is served by southbound trains. The other two are served by northbound trains, platform 1 mainly for trains terminating at Finchley Central or going to Mill Hill East, platform 2 mainly for trains going on to High Barnet.

Finchley Central was the home station of Harry Beck, designer of the original Tube map, and features a commemorative plaque on the southbound platform together with a facsimile poster of Beck's design.

[edit] Transport links

The following London Buses serve the station:

82 (North Finchley Tally Ho Corner to Victoria Terminus Place) every 8 minutes
125 (Winchmore Hill, Station Road-Finchley Central Station) every 10 minutes
143 (Brent Cross Shopping Centre-Archway Station) every 12 minutes
326 (Brent Cross Shopping Centre-Barnet Spires Shopping Centre) every 12 minutes
382 (Mill Hill East tube station-Southgate tube station) every 15 minutes
460 (North Finchley Tally Ho Corner-Willesden Bus Depot) every 12 minutes