Mornington Crescent tube station

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Mornington Crescent
Location
Place	Mornington Crescent
Local authority	Camden

Operations
Managed by	London Underground
Platforms in use	2

Transport for London
Zone	2
2004 annual usage	3.009 million †
2007 annual usage	4.047 million †
History
1907 1992 1998	Opened (CCE&HR) Closed (Northern Line) Reopened
Transport for London List of London stations: Underground \| National Rail
† Data from Transport for London [1]
London Transport Portal

A train pulls into the Mornington Crescent tube station

Enamel sign at Mornington Crescent tube station.

Mornington Crescent is a station in Camden Town in north west London, named after the nearby street. The station is on London Underground's Northern Line Charing Cross branch, between Euston and Camden Town. It is in Travelcard Zone 2.

The station was opened as part of the original route of the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway (now the Charing Cross branch of the Northern Line) on 22 June 1907. Prior to the station's opening, the name of "Seymour Street" had been proposed. After opening, it was little used, and for many years it was open only on weekdays, and before 1966 Edgware-bound trains passed through without stopping.

The station is opposite the music venue KOKO which was once the Camden Palace, and before that, the Music Machine, during which time the station served as a place of congregation for "punks" attending concerts.

1 Closure and reopening
2 Cultural references
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Closure and reopening

On 23 October 1992 the station was shut so that the then 85-year-old lifts could be replaced. The intention was to open it within one year. However, the poor state of neglect that the station had been previously kept in meant other work had to be completed, and the station was closed for most of the 1990s, amidst talk of it closing permanently.

However, a concerted campaign to reopen the station was launched, as the station is held in fond regard due to the popular BBC Radio 4 panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, which frequently features the game round Mornington Crescent, a complex game which takes its name from the station.

The station was reopened on 27 April 1998 by the regular cast of the show (Humphrey Lyttelton, Barry Cryer, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden) and a memorial plaque to the late Willie Rushton, one of the longest-serving panelists, was installed at the station in 2002.

During the station's rebuilding, the original distinctive light blue tiling pattern was restored to the station (though taking into account modern requirements). The ticket hall was reconstructed and the original emergency stairs closed. Modern safety requirements are for squared rather than spiral stairs (since an accident at Bethnal Green station which was the worst loss of life on the whole of the Underground), and so the second lift shaft was converted (losing the unnecessary extra two lifts) into a staircase on one side and a series of station facilities on the other.

Since its 1998 reopening, the station has been open at the same times as most other stations, including weekends, in an attempt to relieve the pressure on the increasingly busy nearby Camden Town station.

[edit] Cultural references

Belle & Sebastian released a song entitled "Mornington Crescent" on their 2006 album, The Life Pursuit. Frontman Stuart Murdoch claimed he had fallen in love with the romance of this former closed station when passing it once.
My Life Story's 1995 album Mornington Crescent takes its name from the station, featuring photos in its sleeve notes.
Mornington Crescent is used by Robert Rankin in many of his novels as the home of the Ministry Of Serendipity, a fictional agency whose main activity is to ensure the British Empire rules the globe, via dealings with Alien activity and suchlike. The Top Secret nature of the Ministry being the main reason why the station was only open on weekdays and closed for "repairs" for much of the 1990s.
The promotional video for "Be There" by UNKLE was filmed in this station.
China Miéville mentions this station and its long state of disuse during the 1990s in his novel King Rat, also using it as scene of a brutal murder by dismemberment via a passing train.
In The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross, the secret main entrance to the extremely secret Government establishment (the "Laundry") which the protagonist Bob Howard works for is situated in the gentlemen's toilets of Mornington Crescent tube station.
in Christopher Fowler's "Bryant & May" mysteries, the offices of the Peculiar Crimes Unit are above Mornington Crescent tube station.