Chesham Underground Station - Station Road, Chesham, Bucks, UK - The Underground on Waymarking.com

Wikipedia has an article about Chesham tube station that tells us:

Chesham is a London Underground station in Chesham, Buckinghamshire. It is served by the Metropolitan line and is the terminus and only station on the Chesham branch, which runs from Chalfont & Latimer. The station is in London fare Zone 9 (previously zone D). The station was opened on 8 July 1889 by the Metropolitan Railway (MR). It is a Grade II listed building.

The distance between Chesham and Chalfont & Latimer is the longest distance between adjacent stations on the whole London Underground network at 3.89 miles (6.26 km), and Chesham station is 25 miles (40 km) north-west of Charing Cross, making it the furthest London Underground station from central London. It is both the northernmost and westernmost London Underground Station.

On the 16th and 17th of August 2014 the branch line celebrated its 125 anniversary of operating. It was celebrated using London Undergrounds first steam locomotive, Metropolitan 1. It ran from Chalfont and Latimer to Chesham, meaning that the line had to be closed for a period of time to allow for the special service.

The station was opened on 8 July 1889 by the Metropolitan Railway as the company's temporary northern terminus when the railway was extended from Rickmansworth. The line had been intended to cross the Chilterns and connect to main line companies serving the north.

From Chesham the line would have continued north to connect to the London and North Western Railway?'?s Euston-Birmingham line at Tring. However, before work was begun, the MR chose an alternative route across the Chilterns via Aylesbury. The line to Chesham was retained as a branch from the new route and construction began in late 1887. Although the MR continued to buy land between Chesham and Tring for some years after the station's opening, the route was never extended further.

The station originally had a goods yard and two platforms, but the goods yard was closed in July 1966, and one of the two platforms was closed in November 1970. The goods yard site is now the car park for the station and a Waitrose supermarket. The station is a Grade II listed building.

Since 12 December 2010, Chesham has had an 8-car train every 30 minutes direct to London. In the morning and evening peak, trains run non-stop between Moor Park and Harrow-on-the-Hill, then calling at Finchley Road and all stations to Aldgate. During off-peak times trains also call at Wembley Park, but terminate at Baker Street. For Chesham residents this is a major improvement to the timetable, as previously Chesham was served in the off-peak only by a 4-car shuttle service to Chalfont & Latimer, where passengers had to change onto a train to or from Amersham. Although the reasons for the new service pattern were largely technical (the new rolling stock whilst designed as two four car trains for the 8 car units, and one four and one three car train for the 7 car units, cannot be split into four-car trains as they only have driving cabs at the outer end of each unit), it was expected to ease congestion on local roads by increasing Chesham's attractiveness to park-and-ride motorists.

As mentioned, the station is Grade II listed with the entry at the English Heritage website telling us:

Summary of Building

Underground railway station, opened 1889.

Reasons for Designation

Chesham Station, built for the Metropolitan Railway in 1889, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
 

• Architectural interest: the most complete surviving example of a late-C19 rural Metropolitan station;
• Historic interest: a vivid reminder of the Metropolitan Railway's early expansion into London's rural hinterland.
• Ensemble value: the station building, signal box and water tower form an unusually coherent and intact group.

History

The Metropolitan Railway was the world's first underground line, opened in 1863 to ease surface traffic congestion and provide a passenger link between London's main northern railway termini at Paddington, Euston and Kings Cross. From the late 1860s the Metropolitan began to expand gradually through the northern suburbs and into the countryside beyond, where the company reaped large profits from the development of commuter housing. Harrow was reached in 1880 and Rickmansworth in 1885, with the extension to Chesham opening in July 1889; in 1892, however, the line was further extended from Chalfont to Amersham and Aylesbury, leaving the four-mile Chesham section as a shuttle-operated branch line which still operates, although a direct service to Central London is now planned. The booking hall interior was partly remodelled in the 1980s with the introduction of the Underground Ticketing System, but otherwise the buildings have seen little alteration. Measured from Charing Cross, Chesham is the most distant from central London of all the stations on the Underground network.

Details

Underground railway station, opened 1889.

MATERIALS: Entrance building of stock brick with Welsh slate roof; platform canopy with cast-iron columns and timber valancing.

PLAN: L-shaped entrance building with booking hall in short return section to north and offices, waiting room and toilets in longer arm to south. Single canopied platform.

EXTERIOR: Entrance building's short façade to station forecourt has two cross-casement windows with moulded stone heads and cills, flanking central doorway set beneath an off-centre canopy supported on two timber posts with curved braces (the middle post has been removed). Low hipped roof with two brick stacks. Single platform with four-bay canopy, the latter comprising a ridge-and-furrow roof supported on cast-iron columns and decorative openwork spandrel-brackets.

INTERIORS: Booking hall has original fireplace, cornice and matchboard panelling, vertical to dado height and horizontal above. Waiting room has modern tiles below dado but original boarding and cornice above. Original boarded partitions in gents' toilets.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: Square brick water tower to south, treated as a Classical composition with keystone relieving arches and dentil course, surmounted by a large iron tank. Timber signal box on brick base opposite platform, with curved eaves brackets and hipped slate roof.