Site Records

Site Name: North End Station (Northern Line) & the Bull & Bush Floodgate Control Centre

Hampstead Way
London, NW.3
OS Grid Ref: TQ261872

Sub Brit site visit 2009

INTO DISUSE
The control room was maintained until 1984 when the opening of the Thames Barrier eliminated the threat of a tidal surge flooding London; by that time civil defence was a low priority.  As late as 1991 the supervisor at Hampstead Station had to check the phones and equipment once a month – however the 1990 appendix to the rule book on flooding makes no mention of site and is a little vague on whether floodgates are in or out of use.
 
Between 1956 and 1984, the control room would only have been manned in emergency as all floodgates had local control panels for the use of maintenance engineers.  The control room was abandoned and the floodgates were not maintained but they remained intact as it would not have been cost-effective to scrap them. It is likely that civil defence exercises would have seen use of the control room as LT maintained a substantial civil defence unit until all such industrial units were abolished in 1968.

Since the control centre was abandoned at the end of the Cold War it has remained largely intact, although in recent years it has suffered some vandalism and graffiti.  This largely happened at Christmas time when the Underground network closes down and intruders were able to walk 900 metres down the running tunnels from Golders Green station.  Security and surveillance have now been upgraded to avoid a repetition.

Today the platform area is used for the storage of permanent-way materials and the stairs and the inconspicuous access blockhouse on Hampstead Way are retained for emergency egress from the Northern Line.

SUB BRIT VISIT TO NORTH END & THE FLOODGATE CONTROL CENTRE Once inside the blockhouse, our guide rang the supervisor at Golders Green to tell him that we were going down to the platform level – the idea was that the supervisor would tell passing drivers that they might catch a glimpse of orange-jacketed people, but that didn't go to plan as he forgot to tell the drivers.  Just inside the entrance, there is a cutaway plan of the station showing the escape route and warning visitors that the shaft is 35.28 metres deep with 197 steps to the bottom.  We then descended a narrow concrete stairway to a landing with a small plant room for the lift motor and a glass fronted switch cabinet; from there a door led to another empty room. The concrete steps continued down to the upper lift landing.  The lift was decommissioned many years ago and the power to it has been disconnected.  From here a metal spiral staircase descends to the unfinished North End station.  The spiral stairs finish at a lower lift landing from where a further flight of concrete steps leads to a junction.  At this point we were in the original

THE FLOODGATE CONTROL ROOM TODAY
Straight ahead leads through a door into the floodgate control room.  The room has been sub-divided longitudinally with metal panelling boxing in a mass of wiring and relays.  The main control panel on the left has seating for two operators at a metal table in front of the panel; there is a telephone handset hanging on the panel.

Most of the switches for operating the floodgates are still in place but it is now very difficult to read any of the labels as the whole panel has been painted in a variety of vivid colours by graffiti artists.  On the right hand side there are two 1980s-style telephones fixed to the panel.  In the middle of the panel a metal door gives access to a ladder down to the battery room below.

The flood control room itself is located in a section of original station subway but the lower room is a 1950s excavation.  The batteries and racks of electrical switchgear are still in place and some circuits in the room appear to be live.  In a small alcove there is a step up to a door with a notice on it that reads "DANGER  This door opens onto the running tunnel above rail level."

Back at the junction at the bottom of the stairs there is as substantial steel blast door.  Passing through that, the subway crosses the southbound track in the form of a bridge recessed into the roof of the running tunnel and then turns to the left and down a flight of stairs to one of the cross-passages between the two platforms.  To the left steps lead down to track level on the northbound line. 

DOWN TO PLATFORM LEVEL
The steps are there for emergency egress if passengers have to detrain between Golders Green and Hampstead.  There is a sign on the wall indicating that it is an ‘emergency exit’; from here the route up to the surface is well lit and signed.  Apart from some permanent-way material under covers the platform area is completely clear and there is some evidence of the now removed platform.  There is a modern switch room at the southern end of the southbound platform space.

Turning right at the bottom of the stairs a series of partially built brick rooms is still be seen at the south end of the northbound platform area.  A brick wall has been built up to roof level for about forty feet but only one room was actually built and this contains a sink which still has running water and a toilet.  A safe walkway with railings and steps has been constructed through this area in recent years to allow detraining passengers to reach the emergency exit from the platform area at the end of the wall.

One of the cross passages between platforms. Photo by Nick Catford. Click here to enlarge

At this point there is another cross-passage with another flight of steps that would have led up to the other side of the lift landing.  As this isn't an emergency escape route, the steps and the upper-level subway are unlit and unused and there is no handrail on the stairs.  At the top of the steps, the subway turns to the right and once again crosses the southbound line on a bridge and then turns to the right again where a metal door opens into the bottom of a shaft; it is assumed that this is the bottom of the 1954 shaft.  The shaft is roofed over about eight feet up and there is a ladder on the wall up to a trapdoor in the ceiling; unfortunately we

We were unable to access the other cross-passages as this would have involved walking alongside the track.  The platform tunnels, stairs and subways are clearly unfinished and have never been tiled.

TIME FOR A DRINK It was now time to return to the surface from what would have been the deepest station on the underground network.  It seemed fitting that we should end our morning with a pint or so at the nearby Old Bull & Bush, the pub that gave the station its nickname. It was a warm and pleasant day and we were able to sit outside which was lucky for, as usual, some of us were blacker than others!  I'm sure the landlord wouldn't have welcomed

Bull & Bush Hotel at the time it gave the station its nickname.

Other web sites: For further photographs and information on Down Street see Hywel Williams Underground History web site and Pendar Silwood's Abandoned Tube Stations web site.

Sources:

• Various files in the National Archive
• London Transport Museum (the two 1956 pictures))
• Abandoned Stations on London's Underground by J E Connor - Pub. Connor & Butler 2008 ISBN 978 0 947699 41 4
• War Plan UK by Duncan Campbell Pub, Burnett Books Ltd. 1982 ISBN 0 09 150670 0
• Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia

Click here for or further information and pictures of North End station

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