NORTHERN HEIGHTS: Alexandra Palace



 

For a scan of a 1930s A-Z showing the route of the Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace section of this line, click here.

London Transport had planned to take over the entire line (hence it being shown as 'under construction' on contemporary tube maps) and incorporate it into its Northern Line. The conversion works were disrupted by the second world war however: the works that were suitably advanced were completed but the remainder were shelved and never resumed.

The map above shows everything except the plan to divert the section south of Finsbury Park onto the short underground line to Moorgate.

 

 

 

The last bridge before the line reached Alexandra Palace. Strangely, the bridge still exists (for no good reason) but the road doesn't; it has been pedestrianised.

(Apr 2005)

 

 

 

 


Opposite view of the bridge in opposite weather conditions.

(Feb 2007)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The platform site of Alexandra Palace station, levelled after its use as a car auction site. The station building is on the left but lost within the overgrowth.

 

 

 

 

 




The same site cleaned up, revealing the station building (on the left).

(Aug 2000)

 

 

 

The day after the 1980 fire that decimated Alexandra Palace. The former platform area seen here is still flooded from the Fire Brigade's efforts to extinguish the fire.

 

 

 


View of the back of the station building showing the hole left by the removal of the footbridge to the platforms.

(Feb 2007)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sun setting on the Alexandra Palace station site. This view is westward, back toward Muswell Hill.

(Photo: Mar 2003)

"The white building in the photograph was built for British Rail as part of their Research Department. It has a set of stairs at each end, with offices and laboratories between, and apparently was intended to be repeated along the site/trackbed; stairs, labs, stairs, labs, stairs, until the site ran out. The story went that it was only after building it that B.R. noticed the railway didn't go there anymore, and so rolling stock experiments would be impractical.
Some components of the building are identical to what became the British Rail Research HQ in London Road, Derby, and is now the RTC Business Park, having been renamed the Railway Technical Centre sometime in the run up to privatisation. Work was carried out in the London area and throughout Southern Region, testing oil, fuel, building materials, drinking water, checking fumes on ferry car decks, monitoring asbestos in the stripping sheds at Ashford, and as the forensic lab for the BT Police."

(Stephen Blyth - Nov 2005)

 

 

 

 

 

 

View the other way.
Not intending to give them undeserved publicity, the large car auction company now based on the A10 near Enfield, held their auctions on this site prior to moving.

(Mar 2003)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Alexandra Palace station building. For years it was left in a run-down state but was cleaned up...

 

 

 

 

 

 

...and a use as a community centre was found for it.
It is dwarfed by the Palace itself in this view.

(Aug 2000)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Different perspective.

(Aug 2000)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Side view.

(Mar 2003)

 

 

 

The beauty of the station building being used as a community centre is that it still retains the purpose of the original station i.e. serving the community.

(photo: Apr 2015)

 

 

 

A nod to the original function of the station building.

(photo: Apr 2015)

 

All photos taken between 1977 and 1981, except where stated.

 

The Muswell Hill Metro Group are compaigning to have this line re-opened.

 

 

Northern Heights: Mill Hill East - Edgware