Site Records

SiteName: Tower Hill (Mark Lane) Station

Byward Street,
London, EC3.
OS Grid Ref: TQ334807

Sub Brit site visit 3rd January 1967

The Metropolitan Line's Tower of London Station opened in 1882 but it survived only two years. With the opening of the Inner Circle Line on 17th September 1884, the station was closed and replaced by a new station 117 yards to the west. The name for this new station was to have been Seething Lane but by the time it opened on 6th October 1884 it had been renamed Mark Lane. The station had two platforms with an entrance at the comer of Byward Street and Seething Lane.

The surface building was demolished in 1911 with a new entrance a little to the east, incorporated into an office block. On the 1st September 1946 the station was re-named Tower Hill.

Photo:The station entrance in January 1967
Photo by Nick Catford

In 1957 there was a plan to improve the station by providing better lighting and widening the platforms but these proposals were not implemented, although three years later London Transport suggested closing the station altogether and rebuilding on the site of the original Tower of London Station. This was because of the operational difficulties caused by trains terminating at Mansion House and the sub-standard passenger facilities offered at Tower Hill.

The entrance in 2000 - picture by Hywell Williams

Eastbound platform in 1981 photo by Pendar Sillwood

Eastbound stairs in 1981 photo by Pendar Sillwood

Once the necessary parliamentary powers for the resiting had been obtained, closure was announced and the last train called at Tower Hill on 5th February 1967, being simultaneausly replaced by the new station of the same name on the site of the old Tower of London Station.

Within a few days of closure, the westbound platform was demolished to make way for a new reversing line. The old eastbound platform remains largely intact and both the platform and the stairway leading to it can be seen from passing trains. A pedestrian subway under the road also still exists. The 1911 entrance can still be seen although substantially altered internally and now forming part of the soul-less All Bar One pub.

Sources:

• Underground History - Disused stations of London's Underground web site
• Abandoned tube stations web site
• London's Disused Underground Stations by J.E.Connor ISBN 0 947699 29 5

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