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1 February 2026

Patchwork platforms and utter filth on the London Underground

From delightfully intriguing glazed tiles in my last post to shoddy in less than a mile... 

Holborn station is the next station along the Piccadilly line from Russell Square, but it no longer retains any Edwardian era Leslie Green designs having been upgraded in 1933 when it became an interchange with the Central Line and then, in the 1980s, the platforms were remodelled to reflect the antiquities at the nearby British Museum. 

As I stepped off a westbound train last week I noticed that the larger segment of a black tile has been replaced with a grey one:


Why? Surely black tiles aren't in short supply or difficult to source?! 

Worse... a few metres along there's this horrid patchwork mess:


Eurgh! If these yellow stripes were installed as a H&S non-slip zone, then why does it not continue all the way along the platform?!  
Plus, it's filthy. I occasionally see London TfL promo about how they keep the network clean. Hmm, do they? Really?  

At the risk of coming across a bit Daily Mail Handbags At Dawn, here are the dirty walls along the Central line platforms at Oxford Circus where (and it wouldn't have taken a genius to work this out) small tiles = more grout = more places for muck to cling:

I suppose TfL's logic was that sheets of small squares are easier to apply around curved walls. But they seem to have overlooked how these products will be maintained going forward.

Similar examples can be found across the network, mostly in the central zone, such as at Kings Cross where a contingent of fools decided to wipe away any historic value by replacing the lovely pale yellow tiles with black and ultramarine borders. Here's how one section of the interconnecting tunnels used to look in December 2008 just after some old ads were revealed that had been hidden under multiple layers of paper and paste:


A few months later this was all gone. 
And... don't get me started about the products used along The Elizabeth Line – read about more filth here

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Thanks, Jane