Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway — BrandWiki

Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway

short title	Charing Cross, Euston, and Hampstead Railway Act 1893
type	Act
parliament	Parliament of the United Kingdom
long title	An Act for incorporating the Charing Cross Euston and Hampstead Railway Company and for empowering them to construct underground Railways from Charing Cross to Hampstead with a branch to Euston Station and for other purposes.
year	1893
citation	56 & 57 Vict. c. ccxiv
royal assent	24 August 1893
original text	https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/Vict/56-57/214/pdfs/ukla_18930214_en.pdf
collapsed	yes

The Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (CCE&HR), also known as the Hampstead Tube, was a railway company established in 1891 that constructed a deep-level underground "tube" railway in London. Construction of the CCE&HR was delayed for more than a decade while funding was sought. In 1902 it became a subsidiary of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL), controlled by American financier Charles Yerkes. The UERL quickly raised the funds, mainly from foreign investors. Various routes were planned, but a number of these were rejected by Parliament. Plans for tunnels under Hampstead Heath were authorised, despite opposition by many local residents who believed they would damage the ecology of the Heath.

When opened in 1907, the CCE&HR's line served 16 stations and ran for 7.67 mi[2] in a pair of tunnels between its southern terminus at Charing Cross and its two northern termini at Archway and Golders Green. Extensions in 1914 and the mid-1920s took the railway to Edgware and under the River Thames to Kennington, serving 23 stations over a distance of 14.19 mi.[2] In the 1920s the route was connected to another of London's deep-level tube railways, the City and South London Railway (C&SLR), and services on the two lines were merged into a single

Establishment

Origin, 1891–1893

In November 1891, notice was given of a private bill that would be presented to Parliament for the construction of the Hampstead, St Pancras and Charing Cross Railway (HStP&CCR).[3] The railway was planned to run entirely underground from Heath Street, Hampstead to Strand in Charing Cross. The route was to run beneath Hampstead High Street, Rosslyn Hill, Haverstock Hill and Chalk Farm Road to Camden Town and then under Camden High Street and Hampstead Road to Euston Road. The route then continued south, following Tottenham Court Road, Charing Cross Road and King William Street (now William IV Street) to Agar Street adjacent to Strand. North of Euston Road, a branch was to run eastwards from the main alignment under Drummond Street to serve the main line stations at Euston, St Pancras and King's Cross. Stations were planned at Hampstead, Belsize Park, Chalk Farm, Camden Town, Seymour Street (now part of Eversholt Street), Euston Road, Tottenham Court Road, Oxford Street, Agar Street, Euston and King's Cross. Although a decision had not been made between the use of cable haulage or electric traction as the means of pulling the trains, a power station was planned on Chalk Farm Road close to the London and North Western Railway's Chalk Farm station (later renamed Primrose Hill) which had a coal depot for deliveries.

The promoters of the HStP&CCR were inspired by the recent success of the City and South London Railway (C&SLR), the world's first deep-tube railway. This had opened in November 1890 and had seen large passenger numbers in its first year of operation. Bills for three similarly inspired new underground railways were also submitted to Parliament for the 1892 legislative session, and, to ensure a consistent approach, a Joint Select Committee was established to review the proposals. The committee took evidence on various matters regarding the construction and operation of deep-tube railways, and made recommendations on the diameter of tube tunnels, method of traction, and the granting of wayleaves. After preventing the construction of the branch beyond Euston, the Committee allowed the HStP&CCR bill to proceed for normal parliamentary consideration. The rest of the route was approved and, following a change of the company name, the bill received royal assent on 24 August 1893 as the (56 & 57 Vict. c. ccxiv).[4]

Search for financing, 1893–1903

Although the company had permission to construct the railway, it still had to raise the capital for the construction works. The CCE&HR was not alone; four other new tube railway companies were looking for investors – the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (BS&WR), the Waterloo & City Railway (W&CR) and the Great Northern & City Railway (GN&CR) (the three other companies that put forward bills in 1892) and the Central London Railway (CLR, which had received assent in 1891). Only the W&CR, which was the shortest line and was backed by the London and South Western Railway with a guaranteed dividend, was able to raise its funds without difficulty. For the CCE&HR and the rest, much of the remainder of the decade saw a struggle to find investors in an uninterested market. A share offer in April 1894 had been unsuccessful and in December 1899 only 451 out of the company's 177,600 £10 shares had been part sold to eight investors.[5]

Like most legislation of its kind, the Charing Cross, Euston, and Hampstead Railway Act 1893 imposed a time limit for the compulsory purchase of land and the raising of capital. To keep the powers granted by the act alive, the CCE&HR submitted a series of further bills to Parliament for extensions of time. Extensions were granted by the ' (60 & 61 Vict. c. xxxix),[6]

Deciding the route, 1893–1903

While the CCE&HR raised money, it continued to develop the plans for its route. On 24 November 1894, a bill was announced to purchase additional land for stations at Charing Cross, Oxford Street, Euston and Camden Town.[10] This was approved as the ' (57 & 58 Vict. c. lxxxvi) on 20 July 1895.[11] On 23 November 1897, a bill was announced to change the route of the line at its southern end to terminate under Craven Street on the south side of Strand.[12] This was enacted as the ' (61 & 62 Vict. c. cxiii) on 25 July 1898.[7]

On 22 November 1898, the CCE&HR published another bill to add an extension and to modify part of the route.[13] The extension was a branch from Camden Town to Kentish Town where a new terminus was planned as an interchange with the Midland Railway's Kentish Town station

Hampstead Heath controversy

A controversial element of the CCE&HR's plans was the extension of the railway to Golders Green. The route of the tube tunnels took the line under Hampstead Heath and strong opposition was raised, concerned about the effect that the tunnels would have on the ecology of the Heath. The Hampstead Heath Protection Society claimed that the tunnels would drain the sub-soil of water and the vibration of passing trains would damage trees. Taking its lead from the society's objections, The Times published an alarmist article on 25 December 1900 claiming that "a great tube laid under the heath will, of course, act as a drain; and it is quite likely that the grass and gorse and trees on the Heath will suffer from the loss of moisture ... Moreover, it seems to be established beyond question that the trains passing along these deep-laid tubes shake the earth to its surface, and the constant jar and quiver will probably have a serious effect upon the trees by loosening their roots."[18] In fact, the tunnels were to be excavated at a depth of more than 200 ft below the surface, the deepest of any on the London Underground. In his presentation to the joint committee, the CCE&HR's counsel disparagingly refuted the objections: "Just see what an absurd thing! Disturbance of the water when we are 240 feet down in the London clay – about the most impervious thing you can possibly find; almost more impervious than granite rock! And the vibration on this railway is to shake down timber trees! Could anything be more ludicrous than to waste the time of the Committee in discussing such things presented by such a body!"[19]

A second railway company, the Edgware and Hampstead Railway (E&HR), also had a bill before Parliament which proposed tunnels beneath the Heath as part of its planned route between Edgware and Hampstead.

Construction, 1902–1907

With the funds available from the UERL and the route decided, the CCE&HR started site demolitions and preparatory works in July 1902. On 21 November 1902, the CCE&HR published another bill which sought compulsory purchase powers for additional buildings for its station sites, planned the take-over of the E&HR and abandoned the permitted but redundant section of the line from Kentish Town to the proposed depot site near Highgate Road.[21] This bill was approved as the (3 Edw. 7. c. ci) on 21 July 1903.[22]

Before tunnelling began, the CCE&HR commissioned Ernest Milner, an architectural photographer, to create a photographic record of every building on the line of the route. This was a safeguard against fraudulent claims for compensation from property owners alleging that cracks or subsidence were caused by the tunnelling. The photographs later became a useful resource for local historians and researchers. Those taken in the boroughs of Hampstead and St. Pancras were donated by London Transport to the respective boroughs' public libraries in 1961.[23][24]

Tunnelling began in September 1903.

Co-operation and consolidation, 1907–1910

Despite the UERL's success in financing and constructing the Hampstead Railway in only seven years, its opening was not the financial success that had been expected. In the Hampstead Tube's first twelve months of operation it carried 25 million passengers, just half of the 50 million that had been predicted during the planning of the line. The UERL's pre-opening predictions of passenger numbers for its other new lines proved to be greatly over-optimistic, as did the improvement in passenger numbers expected on the newly electrified MDR – in each case achieving only around fifty per cent of their targets.

The lower than expected passenger numbers were partly due to competition between the tube and sub-surface railway companies, but the introduction of electric trams and motor buses, replacing slower, horse-drawn road transport, took a large number of passengers away from the trains. The problem was not limited to the UERL; all of London's seven tube lines and the sub-surface MDR and Metropolitan Railway were affected to a degree and the reduced revenues generated from the lower numbers of passengers made it difficult for the UERL and the other railways to pay back the capital borrowed and pay dividends to shareholders.

In an effort to improve the financial situation, the UERL together with the C&SLR, the CLR and the GN&CR began, from 1907, to introduce fare agreements. From 1908, they began to present themselves through common branding as the Underground. The W&CR was the only tube railway that did not participate in the arrangement as it was owned by the mainline London and South Western Railway.

The UERL's three tube railway companies were still legally separate entities with their own management and shareholder and dividend structures. There was duplicated administration between the three companies and, to streamline the management and reduce expenditure, the UERL announced a bill in November 1909 that would merge the Hampstead Tube, the Piccadilly Tube and the Bakerloo Tube into a single entity, the London Electric Railway (LER), although the lines retained their own individual branding.[34] The bill received assent on 26 July 1910 as the London Electric Railway Amalgamation Act 1910 (10 Edw. 7. & 1 Geo. 5. c. xxxii).[35]

Extensions

Embankment, 1910–1914

In November 1910, the LER published notice of a bill to revive the unused 1902 permission to continue the line from Charing Cross to Embankment.[36] The extension was planned as a single tunnel, running in a loop under the Thames, connecting the ends of the two existing tunnels. Trains were to run in one direction around the loop stopping at a single-platform station constructed to provide an interchange with the BS&WR and MDR at Embankment station. The bill received assent as the London Electric Railway Act 1911 (1 & 2 Geo. 5. c. xxix) on 2 June 1911.[37] The loop was constructed from a large excavation north-west of the MDR station and was connected to the sub-surface line with escalators. The station opened on 6 April 1914 as:

Charing Cross (Embankment) (now Embankment)

Hendon and Edgware, 1902–1924

In the decade after the E&HR received royal assent for its route from Edgware to Hampstead, the company continued to search for finance and revised its plans in conjunction both with the CCE&HR and a third railway company, the Watford and Edgware Railway (W&ER) which had plans to build a line linking the E&HR to Watford.

Following the enactment of the Watford and Edgware Railway Act 1906 (6 Edw. 7. c. cxcviii),[38] the W&ER briefly took over the powers of the E&HR to construct the line from Golders Green to Edgware. Struggling to find funds, the W&ER attempted a formal merger with the E&HR through a bill submitted to Parliament in 1906,[39] with the intention of constructing and operating the whole of the route from Golders Green to Watford as a light railway but the bill was rejected by Parliament and, when the W&ER's powers lapsed, control returned to the CCE&HR.

The Edgware and Hampstead Railway Company had remained in existence and had obtained a series of acts to preserve and develop its plans. The ' (5 Edw. 7. c. clxix),[40] the ' (9 Edw. 7. c. clx)[41] and the (2 & 3 Geo. 5. c. lxxxv)[42] granted extensions of time, approved changes to the route, gave permissions for viaducts and a tunnel and allowed the closure and re-routeing of roads to be crossed by the railway's tracks. It was intended that the CCE&HR would provide and operate the trains and this was formalised by the London Electric Railway Act 1912 (2 & 3 Geo. 5. c. lxxviii),[42] which approved the LER's take over of the E&HR.

No immediate effort was made to start the works and they were postponed indefinitely when World War I started. With wartime restrictions in place, construction work for the railway was prevented. Yearly extensions to the earlier E&HR acts were granted under special wartime powers each year from 1916 until 1922, giving a final date by which compulsory purchases had to be made of 7 August 1924.[43] Although the permissions had been maintained, the UERL could not raise the money needed for the works. Construction costs had increased considerably during the war years and the returns produced by the company could not cover the cost of repaying loans.

The project was made possible when the government introduced the Trade Facilities Act 1921 (11 & 12 Geo. 5. c. 65) by which the Treasury underwrote loans for public works as a means of alleviating unemployment. With this support, the UERL raised the funds and work began on extending the Hampstead tube to Edgware. The UERL group's Managing Director/Chairman, Lord Ashfield, ceremonially cut the first sod to begin the works at Golders Green on 12 June 1922.[44]

The extension crossed farmland, meaning it could be constructed on the surface more easily and cheaply than a deep tube line below the surface. A viaduct was constructed across the Brent valley and a short section of tunnel was required at The Hyde, Hendon. Stations were designed in a suburban pavilion style by the UERL's architect Stanley Heaps. The first section opened on 19 November 1923 with stations at:

The remainder of the extension opened on 18 August 1924 with stations at:

Brent (now Brent Cross)
Hendon Central

Colindale
Burnt Oak (opened 27 October 1924)
Edgware

Kennington, 1922–1926

On 21 November 1922, the LER announced a bill for the 1923 parliamentary session. It included the proposal to extend the line from its southern terminus to the C&SLR's station at Kennington where an interchange would be provided.[45] The bill received royal assent as the London Electric Railway Act 1923 on 2 August 1923.[46]

The work involved the rebuilding of the below ground parts of the CCE&HR's former terminus station to enable through running and the loop tunnel was abandoned. Tunnels were extended under the Thames to Waterloo station and then to Kennington where two additional platforms were constructed to provide the interchange to the C&SLR. Immediately south of Kennington station, the CCE&HR tunnels connected to those of the C&SLR. The new service was opened on 13 September 1926 to coincide with the opening of the extension of the C&SLR to Morden. The Charing Cross to Kennington link had stations at:

The C&SLR had been under the control of the UERL since its purchase by the group in 1913. An earlier connection between the CCE&HR and the C&SLR had been opened in 1924 linking the C&SLR's station at Euston with the CCE&HR's at Camden Town. With the opening of the Kennington extension, the two railways began to operate as an integrated service using the newly built Standard Stock trains. On tube maps the combined lines were shown in a single colour although the separate names continued in use into the 1930s.

Hampstead Heath controversy

A controversial element of the CCE&HR's plans was the extension of the railway to Golders Green. The route of the tube tunnels took the line under Hampstead Heath and strong opposition was raised, concerned about the effect that the tunnels would have on the ecology of the Heath. The Hampstead Heath Protection Society claimed that the tunnels would drain the sub-soil of water and the vibration of passing trains would damage trees. Taking its lead from the society's objections, The Times published an alarmist article on 25 December 1900 claiming that "a great tube laid under the heath will, of course, act as a drain; and it is quite likely that the grass and gorse and trees on the Heath will suffer from the loss of moisture ... Moreover, it seems to be established beyond question that the trains passing along these deep-laid tubes shake the earth to its surface, and the constant jar and quiver will probably have a serious effect upon the trees by loosening their roots."[18] In fact, the tunnels were to be excavated at a depth of more than 200 ft below the surface, the deepest of any on the London Underground. In his presentation to the joint committee, the CCE&HR's counsel disparagingly refuted the objections: "Just see what an absurd thing! Disturbance of the water when we are 240 feet down in the London clay – about the most impervious thing you can possibly find; almost more impervious than granite rock! And the vibration on this railway is to shake down timber trees! Could anything be more ludicrous than to waste the time of the Committee in discussing such things presented by such a body!"[19]

A second railway company, the Edgware and Hampstead Railway (E&HR), also had a bill before Parliament which proposed tunnels beneath the Heath as part of its planned route between Edgware and Hampstead.[20] The E&HR had planned to connect to the CCE&HR at Hampstead but, to avoid the needless duplication of tunnels between Golders Green and Hampstead, the two companies agreed that the E&HR would instead connect to the CCE&HR at Golders Green.

The Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead had initially objected to the line but gave consent on the condition that a station be constructed between Hampstead and Golders Green to provide access for visitors to the Heath. A new station was added to the plans at the northern edge of the Heath at North End where it could also serve a new residential development planned for the area. Once Parliament was satisfied that the extension would not damage the Heath, the CCE&HR bills jointly received royal assent on 18 November 1902 as the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway Act 1902 (2 Edw. 7. c. cclvi).[9] On the same date, the E&HR bill received its assent as the (2 Edw. 7. c. cclvii).[9]