The Northern line’s joint-newest tube station, at Battersea Power Station, is about to get a second entrance with more escalators leading to a recently opened part of the Battersea estate.
The station is designed with two tube train platforms, leading up to a large ticket hall concourse, and then three sets of escalators take people up to street level. What people might not realise is that the station was designed to have a second entrance, but it remains hidden away behind a blank wall.
After getting off a train and arriving at the ticket barriers, most people will instinctively turn left and leave the station via the escalators, but look right, and the large blank wall suddenly stands out as noticeably unfinished compared to the rest of the station.
The open entrance
The unfinished entrance
Behind that blank wall is an empty concrete box that was built ready to accept more escalators, but not until a surface building was ready for the entrance to open. The tube station’s second entrance sits underneath a large office block, 50 Electric Boulevard, and after the hoardings around that came down recently, one of the street-level shops was left looking as if it’s waiting for a tenant to move in.
The new entrance on Electric Boulevard (c) ianVisits
In fact, that’s the tube station entrance — and a consultation currently being carried out by the Battersea developer for an unrelated block of flats nearby has confirmed that the new tube station entrance will open early in 2025.
(c) Battersea Power Station / 50 Electric Boulevard
Ahead of that, Transport for London (TfL) needs to install the new escalators and fit out the empty concrete box, and you can see a very subtle hint that work is starting.
The rotating artwork that runs along the width of the tube station used to pass through the blank wall, but when the empty box behind became a building site, they had to make the joint smoke-tight to comply with fire safety regulations in an underground space, so the artwork has been cut back a bit.
The artwork, created by Alexandre da Cunha, will be restored when the new entrance opens.
Cut back art (c) ianVisits
Now that work has started on fitting out the station entrance and escalator box, the station’s second entrance is currently expected to open in Q1 2025.
New station entrance (c) ianVisits
A TfL spokesperson said: “Working in partnership with Battersea Power Station Development Company, work is well underway on building a second step-free entrance to the Underground station at Battersea Power Station which opened as part of the Northern Line Extension in September 2021. The new Western Entrance on Electric Boulevard will provide additional step-free access to the existing station and a more direct link to the Battersea Power Station development. It will include two new escalators, a new lift and is due for completion in spring 2025.”
Let’s hope they do the same at Woolwich (and perhaps Whitechapel) Crossrail.
Whitechapel already has 2 entrance/exits.
I think the plans for the second entrance also still include a handy access route under Nine Elms Lane to a third exit point at the northern end of Stewart’s Road, using a long abandoned former subway. The tourists won’t use that exit – but it will be a helpful access route to both tube and the increasingly busy shopping area for the many flats and handful of remaining industrial employers south of the new development. The double fronted entrance doorway on to Electric Boulevard allows the subway to (if necessary) remain open via the right hand side when the station entrance is closed.