Liverpool Street, also known as London Liverpool Street, is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London, in the ward of Bishopsgate. It is the London terminus of the West Anglia Main Line to Cambridge, the busier Great Eastern Main Line to Norwich, local and regional commuter trains serving east London and destinations in the East of England, and the Stansted Express service to Stansted Airport.
It opened in 1874 as a replacement for Bishopsgate station, which had been the Great Eastern Railway's main London terminus and which was subsequently converted into a goods yard. Liverpool Street was built as a dual-level station with an underground station opened in 1875 for the Metropolitan Railway, named Bishopsgate until 1909 when it was renamed as Liverpool Street. An additional, smaller station called Bishopsgate (Low Level) existed on the main line just outside of Liverpool Street from 1872 until 1916.
During the First World War, Liverpool Street was a target of one of the deadliest daylight air raids by fixed-wing German aircraft; the attack killed 162 people. In the build-up to the Second World War the station served as the entry point for thousands of child refugees arriving in London as part of the Kindertransport rescue mission.
The station was modernised and rationalised by British Rail between 1985 and 1992; at the same time the neighbouring Broad Street station was demolished and its lines redirected into Liverpool Street. As part of the project, the Broadgate development was constructed on the former Broad Street site. Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the modified station in December 1991.
The station was damaged by the 1993 Bishopsgate bombing, and during the 7 July 2005 terrorist attacks in the city seven passengers were killed when a bomb exploded aboard an Underground train just after it had departed from Liverpool Street.
With over 63.6 million passenger entries and exits in 2014–15, Liverpool Street is the third-busiest railway station in the United Kingdom after Waterloo and Victoria, also both in London. It is one of 19 UK stations managed directly by Network Rail.
It has three main exits: to Liverpool Street, after which the station is named, to Bishopsgate, and to the Broadgate development to the west of the station. The Underground station is served by the Central, Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines, and is in fare zone 1.