Bounds Green tube station

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Bounds Green
Location
Place	Bounds Green
Local authority	Haringey
Operations
Managed by	London Underground
Platforms in use	2
Annual entry/exit	4.768 million
Transport for London
Zone	3 and 4
History
Key dates	Opened 19 September 1932
Transport for London List of London stations: Underground \| National Rail

Bounds Green tube station is a London Underground station, located at the junction of Bounds Green Road and Brownlow Road, in North London.

The station is on the Piccadilly Line, between Wood Green and Arnos Grove stations, and is on the boundary between Travelcard Zone 3 and Zone 4.

Like all stations on the Cockfosters extension, Bounds Green station which opened on September 19, 1932, set new aesthetic standards, not previously seen on London's Underground. During the planning period of the extension to Cockfosters, alternate names for this station, (Wood Green North) and (Brownlow Road), were considered but rejected.

It is currently being refurbished as part of the Transport for London’s £10billion Investment Programme. Works are set to be completed by June 2007. The works have been completed overnight and in a series of weekend closures. New train indicators have already been placed and much of the flooring and tiling has been cleaned/replaced.

Architecturally, this tube station, designed in the typical "Box-style" of the architect Charles Holden by his colleague C. H. James, is a well-preserved example of the modernist house style of London Transport in the 1930s. The octagonal frontage is flanked by a ventilation tower.

The sub-surface areas of the station are tiled in biscuit coloured tiles lined with red friezes. The station tunnels have, in common with those of Southgate, a diameter of 640 centimetres. In contrast, the much busier Wood Green, Turnpike Lane and Manor House have 700 centimetre diameter platform tunnels. The construction of "suicide pits" between the rails was also innovative. These were built in connection with a system of passageways under the platforms to give access to the track.

Memorial plaque placed in 1994 for the 1940 air raid victims

On the night of 13 October 1940, a lone German aircraft dropped a single bomb on houses to the north of the station. The destruction of the houses caused the north end of the westbound platform tunnel to collapse, killing or injuring many people amongst those sheltering from the air raid. The train service was disrupted for two months. A memorial plaque (at the north end of the westbound platform) erroneously commemorates "sixteen Belgian refugees and... three British citizens who died" in the attack. The records of the civilian deaths held by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission indicate that in fact sixteen people died at the scene - only three of whom were Belgian - with a seventeenth dying in hospital the following day. Approximately twenty people were injured, but survived.

Nearby places: