Mill Hill East tube station

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Mill Hill East
Location
Place	Mill Hill
Local authority	Barnet
Operations
Managed by	London Underground
Platforms in use	1
Annual entry/exit	0.875 million
Transport for London
Zone	4
History
1867 1939 1941	Opened (GNR) Closed (LNER) Reopened (Northern Line)
Transport for London List of London stations: Underground \| National Rail

Mill Hill East tube station is a London Underground station in Mill Hill in North London.

The station is on the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line, and is the terminus, and only station, of a branch from Finchley Central station. It is in Travelcard Zone 4. As of October 2006, service will be provided by a dedicated shuttle between Finchley Central and Mill Hill East, with the exception of peak services and some weekend trains.

[edit] History

Mill Hill East station was built by the Edgware, Highgate and London Railway (EH&LR) and was originally opened as Mill Hill 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.

The EH&LR was originally built as a single track line with the intention of doubling the track at a later date when business developed. However, when the GNR opened a branch from Finchley Central to High Barnet in April 1872 traffic on that section of the line was greater and the second track was never laid from Finchley Central to Edgware. For most of its history the service between those two stations was operated as a shuttle.

The station has been known by a number of names during its life including London Mill Hill and Mill Hill for Mill Hill Barracks. It was given its present name in 1928.

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.

In preparation for the transfer to London Underground operation, new track laying and electrification works had begun on the whole of the line from Finsbury Park when the start of the Second World War caused the postponement of the improvements. Passenger shuttle services on the Finchley Central to Edgware section were ended on 11 September 1939 but, to provide quick rail access to Mill Hill Barracks, the electrification of the short section of track between Finchley Central and Mill Hill East was completed although the track remained a single line. The station reopened on 18 May 1941. The work on the rest of the line from Mill Hill East to Edgware was left incomplete and after the war the proposal to electrify the line and to incorporate it into the Underground system was abandoned.

The buffer stops at Mill Hill East station as seen in October 2005. Note that part of the former trackbed has been built over.

Regular passenger services never used the line beyond Mill Hill East again although it was operated with steam haulage for freight purposes until 1964 when it was finally closed. The track and most of the infrastructure has been removed or destroyed but the original alignment can be followed in some locations.

Today, Mill Hill East station still retains much of its original Victorian architectural character and, as one of the two remaining original stations, on the Edgware, Highgate and London Railway (along with Finchley Central), 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.