Closer

Best viewed Large and Dark.

A while ago I noticed that, for some reason, the lights were being left on in this tunnel but it took a while for me to get my arse in gear to capture the view on camera - quite appalling given that I pass this view most days at the moment.

To add to my woes the location meant that I couldn't realistically use a tripod... so I had to resort to the well known camera on the floor technique - a trick I picked up from me old mucka and fellow Flickrite Homemade. After much trial and error, and four early-morning visits, I got a good run of shots of which this is probably the best one....

...and was originally posted in Guess Where London where Ben Patio identified the location as Barbican Station, looking along the former Thameslink lines to Moorgate.

Barbican station started life as Aldersgate Street (so named after the street where it’s located) and was soon shortened to Aldersgate. After that it was Aldersgate and Barbican and finally just Barbican. I’m guessing there was confusion of Aldersgate versus Aldgate, which is two stops further down the line.

The original site – 134 Aldersgate – used to have a sign outside which said it was Shakespeare’s house… but there’s absolutely no evidence this was the case. Don’t know why I mentioned that really, but there you go.

The station was opened in 1865 on the extension of the Metropolitan Railway which previously terminated at Farringdon. The first extension went as far as Liverpool Street and with direct access at each end it was possible for trains to run from the West Coast mainline, down onto the Metropolitan Railway and off the other end onto metals running towards the East of England. A feat which may be duplicated some 150 years later with Crossrail...?

The lines here weren't part of the Metropolitan but instead where what used to be known as the "Widened Lines" which ran from St Pancras and Kings Cross to Moorgate, the next stop down. In the heyday of steam there used to be a goods yard between Barbican and Moorgate but this was removed when the Barbican Estate was built – the railway runs beneath the estate as can be seen here where the roof section changes from Ye Olde Brick to the New Concrete.

The numerous poles/pipes and what have you that stick down from the tunnel roof are rather disturbing - are they structural... for drainage... or for firing missiles on people who venture into the depths? At the moment these lines are no longer used - "mothballed" is probably the best term - and the connecting junction at Farringdon is about to be severed when the new 'uber platforms' are put in place to cater for 12-coach trains following which they will be isolated completely. I rambled on about this in my Barbican Tunnels shot so I won’t dribble on about it here.

If you go to the station there’s some information and old pictures just inside the barriers… something a zillion commuters ignore every day, but worth stopping to have a look if for no other reason than to get in the way of people as they barge past.

Enjoy!

Update on 21st Dec

This seems to have been rather popular, making No.2 (and later, on the 22nd, No. 1) in the "Flickr Hit Parade" and the ubiquitous Front Page of Explore. I'm stunned. "Nowt so queer as folk" as they used to say.