Bounds Green tube station is a London Underground station, located at the junction of Bounds Green Road and Brownlow Road, in North London. The station is on the Piccadilly line, between Wood Green and Arnos Grove stations, and is on the boundary between Zone 3 and Zone 4.
Like all stations on the Cockfosters extension, Bounds Green station, which opened on 19 September 1932, set new aesthetic standards, not previously seen on London's Underground. During the planning period of the extension to Cockfosters, alternate names for this station, "Wood Green North" and "Brownlow Road" were considered but rejected.
Architecturally, this tube station, designed in the typical "Box-style" of the architect Charles Holden by his colleague C. H. James, is a well-preserved example of the modernist house style of London Transport in the 1930s. The octagonal frontage is flanked by a ventilation tower. Unlike others on this extension, the station was not previously nationally listed as of special architectural interest but in August 2008 an application was made to English Heritage for a listing recommendation and in January 2010 the station was Listed at Grade II.
On the night of 13 October 1940, during The Blitz, a lone German aircraft dropped a single bomb on houses to the north of the station. The destruction of the houses caused the north end of the westbound platform tunnel to collapse, killing or injuring many people amongst those sheltering from the air raid. The train service was disrupted for two months.
A memorial plaque (at the north end of the westbound platform) erroneously commemorates "sixteen Belgian refugees and... three British citizens who died" in the attack. The records of the civilian deaths held by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission indicate that in fact sixteen people died at the scene - only three of whom were Belgian - with a seventeenth dying in hospital the following day. Approximately twenty people were injured, but survived.
Two escalators take passengers from the ticket hall down to the platforms with a central fixed stairway. These machines were installed in 1989 and 1991, replacing the original 1932 machines. The current installations are Otis MH-B type of 15.8m vertical rise. The sub-surface areas of the station are finished in biscuit-coloured tiles lined with red friezes. The station tunnels have, in common with those of Southgate, a diameter of 21 feet (6.4 metres). In contrast, the much busier Wood Green, Turnpike Lane and Manor House have 23-foot (7-metre) diameter platform tunnels. The construction of "suicide pits" between the rails was also innovative; these were built in connection with a system of passageways under the platforms to give access to the track.
London Buses routes 102; 184; 221; 299 and night route N91 serve the station.
Reasons for Designation
Bounds Green Underground Station is designated for the following principal reasons: * For special architectural interest as a distinctive variant on the 'Holden Box' Piccadilly Line station design, with a unique octagonal ticket hall, which responds appropriately to its suburban setting while boldly announcing its presence through its Modernist style; * As part of the best grouping of Charles Holden designed or influenced London Underground stations under the aegis of Frank Pick, designed by an accomplished architect, Charles Holloway James. These are among the first and most widely-celebrated examples of fully modern architecture in Britain. They are also significant for bringing this new idiom to the general public, and for imposing a corporate identity to buildings and design when this was still novel; * For special historical interest as the site of heavy casualties in an air raid during the Blitz, commemorated in a plaque on the platform.
Underground railway station and shops. Opened September 1932. Designed by Charles Holloway James of Messrs CH James and Bywaters, overseen by Charles Holden for the Underground Group.
MATERIALS: Reinforced concrete frame, the street-level entrance building clad in mixed red and brown brick with steel-framed glazing; high concrete cornices and oversailing flat roofs.
EXTERIOR: Externally, the station consists of three distinct elements: an octagonal ticket hall, a single-storey return to the west in Bounds Green Road terminating in a shop (No. 38), and a tall rectangular ventilation tower to the north. To the left of the Bounds Green Road entrance is a curved shop unit which forms the first section of the western range; a complementary shop also flanks the east entrance in Brownlow Road.
Ticket hall faced in mixed red and brown brick with a flat reinforced-concrete roof with projecting eaves and large steel-framed canted windows forming the four shorter sides of the octagonal plan. The brick panels on the east and south facades (facing respectively Brownlow Road and Bounds Green Road) each contain a large UNDERGROUND roundel. Both these and the roundels on the upper sections of the north and south faces of the ventilation tower are replicas of the original 1930s design, but are probably set into the original artificial stone panels. The upper section of the ticket hall is divided from the lower by a wide concrete canopy which extends to the west over the single-storey return, and to the north over the roof of a single-storey shop unit to the right of the entrance on Brownlow Road, which links the ticket hall to the ventilation tower. On the southern edge of the canopy the original Bounds Green Road street sign remains although the station signs above the two entrances are replicas. The shop in Brownlow Road no longer has its original curved metal windows. The complementary shop to the left of the entrance in Bounds Green Road retains its metal windows on the curved section, but its other windows are wooden replacements and the original external door has been infilled. A number of original bronze-framed information panels survive on the station frontage.
The ventilation tower, a practical solution to reduce the rush of air from incoming trains on the underground platforms as well as providing a focal point for the station, is similar in form to that at Turnpike Lane underground station (q.v.). The tower is of red and brown brick with a flat concrete roof with painted steel louvers below and also extending down the east and west faces.
INTERIOR: Consists, at ground level, of a ticket hall, leading on to a lower-height escalator hall with ancillary rooms on either side. The impressive ticket hall, with its concrete coffered ceiling, largely follows the original colour scheme of cream, grey, black and red tiling with, unusually for Holden-style stations, a plastered upper section, painted cream. The tiles were replaced in refurbishments of the 1990s and 2008, overlaid on the originals. A replica bronze, Art Deco uplighter with ceramic upper section stands in the centre of the ticket hall where the marble-fronted passimeter once stood. Some door frames and bronze lettering survive. The escalator hall has a raised rectangular roof lantern with narrow horizontal windows.
At platform level one of the two floor-mounted fluted bronze uplighters at the foot of the escalators is original, the other a facsimile. The tiling was sympathetically replaced in 2008. Other original features of note are the wooden surrounds for vending/weighing machines and bronze WAY OUT signs, ventilation grilles and information panel frames. At the north end of the westbound platform is a bronze plaque in memory of those who died on 13 October 1940.
HISTORY: Bounds Green station was built as part of the first section of the northward extension of the Piccadilly Line out as far as Cockfosters. This seven- mile extension beyond the original terminus of Finsbury Park was authorised by a parliamentary Act dated 4th June 1930 to serve the enlarging suburban areas in north Middlesex and was overseen by Frank Pick (1878-1941), the visionary administrator of the Underground Group and Chief Executive of the London Transport Passenger Board from 1933. The first section of the extension, from Finsbury Park to Arnos Grove, which included the stations at Manor House, Turnpike Lane, Wood Green and Bounds Green, was opened on 19 September 1932. Southgate and Enfield West (now Oakwood) followed in March 1933 and the terminus at Cockfosters opened on 31 July 1933. Consideration had been given to calling the station 'Wood Green North' or 'Brownlow Road' before Bounds Green was decided upon. The station was designed by Charles Holloway James (1893-1953) in the Modernist house style developed, and in this case supervised, by Charles Holden (1875-1960) for the Piccadilly Line extension stations. Holden had previously worked with James on the design of the Empire Marketing Board stand at an exhibition at Olympia in 1931. Pick and Holden had both been deeply influenced by a short tour of examples of new architecture on the Continent which they had undertaken in the summer of 1930, and Holden's subsequent designs emphasised functionality combined with balanced geometry and the use of modern materials, especially glass and reinforced concrete.
On 13th October 1940 the north end of the westbound platform was badly damaged by a German bomb which killed 19 and wounded many others sheltering in the station including some Belgian refugees, an event commemorated by a plaque erected on the platform in 1994.
Charles Holloway James was born in Gloucester and was articled to the local architect Walter Brian Wood. He was an assistant in Lutyens's office from 1911-14, and was invalided home from the armed forces in 1916 after the loss of his leg. For a short time he worked for Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin at Letchworth Garden City. In 1919 he went into partnership with Charles Murray Hennell, and designed Swanpool Garden Suburb, south of Lincoln (1919-21) and also contributed early work at Welwyn Garden City in the mid 1920s. James designed three houses for himself in Hampstead Garden Suburb, beginning with No. 1 Hampstead Way in 1920. He worked with a number of architects including Louis de Soissons at Welwyn. He jointly designed Oakwood station (q.v.) with Charles Holden, also on the Piccadilly Line.
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: Bounds Green Underground Station is designated for the following principal reasons:
- For special architectural interest as a distinctive variant on the 'Holden Box' Piccadilly Line station design with a unique octagonal ticket hall, which responds appropriately to its suburban setting while boldly announcing its presence through its Modernist style;
- As part of the best grouping of Charles Holden designed or influenced London Underground stations under the aegis of Frank Pick, designed by an accomplished architect, Charles Holloway James. These are among the first and most widely-celebrated examples of fully modern architecture in Britain. They are also significant for bringing this new idiom to the general public and for imposing a corpotate identity on buildings and design when this was still novel;
- For special historical interest as the site of heavy casualties in an air raid during the Blitz, commemorated in a plaque on the platform.