Happy Birthday to Northwood Hills tube station — 80 years young today. If you use the station, do take time to look in the window of a local restaurant, as you might see a birthday cake in there, as one has been bought by the station staff.
Opened on the 13th November 1933, the station filled in a lengthy gap that had been left when the Metropolitan Line was extended from Pinner to its new terminus at Northwood.
Construction probably started in early 1933, as a brief note in the Times newspaper in May 1933 commented that a station at the location was being constructed at the time.
Curiously, Northwood Hills is despite its name, lower down geographically than Northwood. The name was apparently allocated following a public contest.
This was not without controversy though, and the Clerk of the Ruislip-Northwood Urban District Council wrote to the Times explaining that the Council would prefer the choice of “Haste Hill” or “Joel Steet” instead. He said that choice of the current name bore no relation to the area, which he was correct about. But London Transport stuck to its plans, and the not-hills got a station named after the nearby hills.
Unlike most of the stations built by the Metropolitan Railway, which were built at the same time as the railway was expanded, Northwood Hills was added later. Much later.
In fact, the line from Pinner to Northwood had been opened in September 1887. Although both stations served small towns, at the time, it was just farmland between them — so no need for a station. As part of the Metropolitan Line’s Metro-Land project, it started started developing the farms as housing in the 1920s. And slap bang between two towns was a lot of farm land. It just needed a station, and in 1933 it finally got one.
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The road that the station was built upon was barely a dirt track according to this photo.
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Although it has changed somewhat since then.
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The road is lined with a parade of typical flats above shops which typify so many of the housing and shopping developments of the time. Sadly modern shop frontages rarely do much to enhance the building, and this is an area now dominated by restaurants, takeaways and a few “corner shops”.
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A few are boarded up, but fewer than media reports of a dying high-street might suggest should have been. Indeed, Laura is opening a new hairdresser next week, with a visit by the Mayor.
Unlike the farmland turned shopping arcade, the station itself is not all that much changed from when it opened.
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Inside, modern additions are evident with ticket barriers, security cameras and the modern ticket desk. Paint is peeling away in places, and the physical structure could do with a bit of TLC.
What looks like the remains of the old ticket collection box stands by the doors and seems to now house a taxi firm.
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The station staff are rather proud of their planting skills though, and a sign in the upper floor lists a number of winning certificates from previous years. Since 2003 they have won twenty awards, including six first-place prizes.
The planters are mostly in a winter hibernation now, but some of the bedding plants are doing well, and yes, they do encourage birds.
I wonder if any tube stations have bee hives? Tube branded honey?
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Waiting rooms offer a respite from the cold in the winter, and on the busier southbound platform when I visited were in use by a couple seeking shelter from the clear cold air.
Do also pay attention to the stairwell down to the southbound platform — those aren’t just advertising posters, but an art project to make the 100th anniversary of the tube roundel in 2008. Interesting to think that the roundel was already 20 years old when the station was built.
And in another 20 years, the station will mark its own centenary.
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Now, here’s for a tangent. The tube station building reportedly appeared on the album of Elton John’s 9th studio album, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. He lived locally, and it was the station he used when commuting to attend the Royal Academy of Music.
Now that’s something to add to your next pub quiz.
The wooden structure used by the taxi firm is probably a former kiosk, rather than for ticket collecting. When the station opened in 1933 it would have had a passimeter ticket office standing in the middle of the ticket hall, with passengers entering and exiting on opposite sides. This kiosk was right by the station entrance, for passengers to buy cigarettes etc.
You beat me to it. Almost certainly a fags and newspapers kiosk. There is still a similar one in use, once a WH Smith, on platform 2 at Baker Street.
And Pinner too on the Southbound platform.
Elton John also played his first gigs at the pub across the road from the station.