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Which London terminus or terminii would you recommend that your distant relatives from New Zealand, visiting for a few weeks in the summer of 2021, take a look at?  They have an interest in architecture ...

I will open a poll on Thursday 23rd and run it for a week - allowing members to vote for as few or as many stations as they wish to suggest to Oliver and Amelia (currently the two most popular names in New Zealand).  But I have a problem - what is the definition of a London Terminus?   Circling around, I came across these candidates within my memory.

Fenchurch Street
Aldgate
Liverpool Street
Broad Street
Moorgate
Kings Cross
St Pancras
Euston
Baker Street
Marylebone
Paddington
Victoria
Charing Cross
Waterloo
Blackfriars
Holborn Viaduct
Cannon Street
London Bridge

Sadly, Broad Street and Holborn Viaduct should not be included in the vote (my view) - nothing for O and A to see any longer; Broad Street had its magnificense, and I have a fondess for Holborn Viaduct which was my commute station for a number of years.

Aldgate and Baker Street are purely Transport for London (Metropolitain Line) but perhaps it's politics rather than architecture that leaves them off the National Rail network.  Moorgate may come as a surprise, but it *is* the terminus for Great Northern National Rail suburban service.

London Bridge, Waterloo, Blackfriars and St Pancras all have a considerable number of through National Rail trains, but in all cases I have included them as terminii in my list - am I correct to do so?

Should Kings Cross and St Pancras be treated as a single station?  Should Waterloo (and London Bridge, and even Victoria) each be treated as two?

Not listed - pure TfL stations such as Tower Gateway. Kensington (Olympia) (although I have left from there on Motorail). Bank (although it was a National Rail terminal in my memory, with trains to Waterloo).  Anywhere else I have left out that should be considered

I know that the intention is to consider only the inner London destination of 'up' trains, but, from the phrasing of the question, Bromley North is definitely in London. Geographically and administratively I am not sure if Hayes is in London or Kent, but am inclined to think it is in the London borough of Bromley. (Although I can't remember whether Hayes has any architectural merit!. My distant memory is of some fine platform awning.)

If you do include LUL, then the District Line trainshed at Ealing is also worth a photo.

I think it might be worth distinguishing between the train shed and the station building. Regrettably in some cases the accountants have had a "mezzanine" floor installed in the train sheds to optimise the financial situation. This tends to result in a low dark oppressive area to actually join/leave trains. Victorian CCEs understood that there was a relationship between floor area and ceiling height which gave some of the wonderful train sheds we know.

Chingford
Chessington South
Hayes (Kent)

Those three have some interesting architecture  ;D

If they are interested in architecture, I would not bother trying to limit them to terminus stations. Go for any station that is worth a look - York comes to mind immediately, and a nice day (or two) out to go to look at it into the bargain.

Yes ... my thoughts were really the (inner) London termini - doubting that Oliver and Amelia would be motivated to travel out to the likes of Bromley North, Richmond or Cockfosters. If I try do define it I would suggest 4km from The Cross at Charing Cross.


I am - sorry CyclingSid - not tempted to separate station buildings and train sheds into separate polls - but I do fancy after the vote (if still living in lockdown!) writing them up in the form of one of those click-bate surveys with a picture of each and a description.  Such a writeup would include highlight and lowlights of each of them - starting at (say) 10th then moving up after an infuriating number of pages to the top station to visit.

P.S. We have the knowledge on this forum to do are darned sight better in our descriptions than you typically see on sequences such as "best dog breed as a family pet" which come up with some ridiculous opinions.

Gents, you posted while while I was answering the earlier comments ...

I fear we are 'here' in lockdown for a long time.   My thought is to use just some of the material this time around rather than chucking all the wonderful logs we have on the fire all at the same time ... yes, for days out to see wonderful stations; yes for stations in Greater London that aren't inner termini ... but those are next in the series, rather than in this episode.

Understood.  Just that I thought Chessington South was a lovely example of 1930s concrete architecture thats now gone to pot.... :P

(https://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/02/22/46/2224633_3be77bc1.jpg)

A very interesting example of a terminus that was not intended to be such when it was built!

Station for "Chessington Zoo" ... now "Chessington World of Adventure".  I do recall in an 'earlier life' walking across from that station to the attraction, then back afterwards in a flow of people.  I wonder, these days, whether the railway is a significant carrier of passengers to the World of Adventure.

Crystal Palace, historical architecture and wide staircases. Now the terminus for TfL trains.
I guess however that by terminus you mean the grand overall roof stations like Paddington etc, in which case you have all the main ones listed. You might want to add Blackfriars (2 terminal platforms) and with a very interesting structure across the river

In purely architectural terms I'd probably go for St Pancras and Waterloo.

Me too and add Paddington.  If they fancy heading out into the suburbs, Chessington South and Bromley North would be the two I'd go for.

The elegance of Kings Cross, especially now the front area ha been cleared.

Following S&T's example in getting back to sticking to the rules, I'd add my vote to St Pancras, King's Cross, Waterloo and Paddington. They are in a different league to the rest.

Opinions / canvassing for certain stations is welcome ... but we're in a pre-vote.


Making sure I get the correct stations for you to choose from ... which should (and should not) be there.  I'm thinking "no" for Holborn Viaduct and Broad Street, a "yes" for Blackfriars, a "probably" for Moorgate and a "probably not" for Aldgate and  Baker Street.  But views on those choices very welcome.

Come 23rd, we'll do a vote

Early May, a nice writeup of the whole thing.

Not sure if it’s within 4km, but how about Hammersmith (Hammersmith & City)?

Not sure sure if it's in 4K but Denmark Hill,  it's not a terminus, but is an  example of an interesting Station Building which is now a decent pub (Pheonix) but has some ghastly modern buildings  as a station.

Not terminii again but what about any of the Holden LUL stations or iconic SR ones like Surbiton. They always come up in railway programmes.

The 4km is shown in reply no. 5 ... but the thread has move on very lively. 

See
http://www.passenger.chat/pix/london4km.jpg

For this current exercise, looking at "outbound" termini from the centre ... following exercises / episodes to cover things like ...inner 'burbs stations, stations inside the M25, day trip destinations from London, seaside trips,  country walks, etc.

P.S. Is Victoria COACH station a London terminus by my definition?

I also love some of the exotic destinations carved into the stonework at Victoria, and, to a lesser extent, at Blackfriars, if these are still there.

Many stations in France - particularly on the reseau de l'ouest have maps prominently displayed on the stonework or in tiles - Dinard and Versailles Chantiers come to mind. Not forgetting tile maps at Whitby, York and probably elsewhere on the onetime NER.

And Manchester Victoria has a very good one for the L&Y system.

The Blackfriars ones are here:

https://cdn.prgloo.com/media/1e28a6f6f35e4ad1a5f71b1edae5ffc5.jpg?width=1135&height=960

There are some excellent juxtapositions - Brussels, Chatham, Sevenoaks, Lucerne - and an interesting historic mix of English names (of French-speaking cities) and French names (of German-speaking cities). So we have Lyons, Geneva, Brussels, Antwerp, Marseilles... but Lucerne, Bâle, Leipsic, Frankfort, Cologne.

I agree. St Pancras is all very well, but Cubitt’s simplicity has a lot going for it now that it is visible.