Alperton station – no escalator, but a rather fine shopping arcade

A couple of months ago I went to investigate Alperton station, a Piccadilly Line stop along the Uxbridge branch. The outer reaches of this line, westwards from Acton Town and northeastwards from Finsbury Park, are all part of Frank Pick's 1930's 'Metroland' expansion, with most of the stations designed by Charles Holden in a variety of Art Deco styles. It's his boxy style that we see at Alperton. 

I'd made this special journey to Alperton because I had read that there is no escalator or lift access in place at this station. An up-only escalator had been installed in 1955 on this eastbound side, relocated from the 1951 Festival of Britain on the Southbank but, by the late 1980s due to lack of use, the moving staircase was bricked up/enclosed behind a wall. 

This all sounded a bit strange to me. I mean, why/how etc? Is is still partly visible? Is there a secret panel? Is it still accessible (to some)?  Hearing that there are now plans to install a new escalator service at Alperton I decided to go and investigate and see for myself how the old one had been bricked up. Perhaps the people of Alperton had less need for travel and the cost of the maintenance outweighed the money that punters/passengers/clients spent on tickets. Enclosing the thing was probably the cheapest option.

I arrived from the via the eastbound line and, as I glanced across the platform I couldn't help but think that the three electricity doodahs opposite, looked like little medieval metal soldiers standing guard!

The old escalator surely must have been parallel and to the left of the stairs that lead down from the eastbound platform to the ticket barriers. I examined the walls at platform level but could see no obvious patches where an arch/access might have been (perhaps brickies in the 1980s were better at patching-in than they they are these days as per the mess in Bloomsbury, here). 

At the bottom of the stairs I scanned the walls at the rear of the concourse and also found not a hint of repair work. The whole thing looks silky smooth and original 1930s to me.

Ah, here's a thought...  having just looked at via Google's globe view it's likely that the 1950's escalator was not installed within the 1930's station but around the outside to the rear – as is evident by some lower additions that hug the building – these might contain what's left of our moving stairway. The planned new escalator will likely be sited in more or less the same space. Any remnants of the dusty old one will have to be removed and replaced as it will be completely out of date, probably sporting those dangerous, albeit evocative, slatted wooden treads.

As regards a similar service for the other side of the tracks, it's problematical vis the lack of space, the railway bridge and the interior foot tunnel, shown in the top left above. I've heard a way around this might necessitate the loss of [some of] the shops at the front, so I went to investigate to understand for myself how that might be achieved. 

Here's the outside of the station, with curved glass kiosk windows in the foreground:

Here's a wider view. I love it, although I'm not convinced that these small shops that back onto the railway bridge were part of Holden's original station design. The shape and style does not tally or line up with elements on the main station building and the colour of the bricks is slightly different, hinting at it being a later development.

I understand that the idea here is to create a new/secondary entrance to the westbound side within/through these kiosks that will allow access to or space for an escalator, or perhaps a lift service. This would mean the current barbershop, which has been there since 2019, could be for the chop (see what I did there?!).

I had a peek at the other side of the bridge, but there's nothing much to see there, so I made my way back to the front of the station and, as I turned back (always check the opposite view because you might have missed something), I happened to notice a strange little lantern that looks out of place and, behind it, a metal ventilation strip running around the curve of the shop with some brass letters at the top right corner, so I took a closer look...

I love the way the o of Co sits within the C. 

This is the sort of thing that gets me excited!  E. Pollard & Co Ltd is a company I am a little bit obsessed and impressed by. Founded in 1895, the company at first offered window fittings and other items for shop display, and swiftly became one of London's most prestigious and well-respected shop-fitting and building companies, transforming not just shops and stations, but also libraries, banks and hotels. Pollard had impressive showrooms in Clerkenwell and at 299 Oxford Street (now Uniqlo). I have also written about the company's curved glass windows here.

Buoyed by this find, I then scanned the rest of the station's exterior and interior to see if if I could find any other similar marks, but no. I shall henceforth, yes, henceforth, be searching for the same or similar at other stations and on any façade that looks like it might be a Pollard's build. Please do let me know if you spot any yourself.

October 2025 - Pollard update – I've found more at other stations! I'll share my findings soon.

An attempt at cleaning

You are probably aware of the ongoing renovations in front of and around Highbury & Islington Station and the re-routing of the traffic around the roundabout (grunt).
The forecourt in front of the station was, so I was told, laid with the incorrect paving slabs and then re-done in nice textured [sandstone?].
But take a look at how it's being maintained. All that happens is a man in one of those mobile sweeping trucks makes a squiggly journey over the slabs and leaving a swirly dirty mess behind and the corners and edges are left untouched.

It looks filthy, worse than before!

See also the Jubilee Bridges

My idea for how Edward Johnston came up with the design for the London Underground Roundel

Just over a hundred years ago London Transport realised it was lacking a visual identity. One of the key things the company needed was a logo and this came to be the 'roundel' we all know today – a circlular ring with a rectangular bar running across it.

Johnston's final design 

Across the fast-expanding network there was a mix of signage in all shapes and sizes. There were discs, banners, lozenges and diamonds, all implementing different styles and typefaces. The whole thing needed to be brought together as a brand.
In 1916 the job was given to Edward Johnston, a relatively unknown calligrapher who appears to have been a quiet camera-shy man who kept his ideas to himself and just got on with the job at hand. But Johnston kept no preliminary sketches and so no-one really knows how his mind was working or what inspired the final design which was finalised and on dislpay in 1919. It's often been said that he based his final design on the 1908 "roundels" can still be found on station platforms such as Covent Garden and Caledonian Rd.

I have a theory about this but it's a bit "chicken or egg"; which came first?
A thought has been bubbling in my head for years but I have only just been motivated to check it through properly this week, as shown here, following a conversation at the museum depot at the weekend.
Here goes...


I believe the simple logo shapes were already staring Johnston in the face every time he looked at one of the arched modular sections on Leslie Green’s ox-blood tube station buildings.


I have used Holloway tube station here to illustrate my point.
First I drew a circle within the window arch.

I then drew a rectangle over the tiled area below the window where the station name appears, making the height of it the same as the section between the top and bottom lips, and its width to be up to the edges of the windows at either side.

And then I coloured it up in red and blue. Looking good.
As you can see, the blue rectangle was sitting too low, so I just shunted it up to align vertically as well as horizontally. Looking better.
And then I checked it against Johnston’s “Proportions of Standard Bullseye Design” which I blasted in Photoshop so I could see what I was doing and….

… drum roll please… it’s the same!
And I hadn’t even measured that blue rectangle!

The logo's proportions have changed a bit over the decades. I checked some subsequent logos and placed them onto Holloway station (not shown here) and they too fit. Perhaps this is what Johnston had in mind all along?
Or is it the other way around?
It occurs to me that Leslie Green might have had the idea for this shape when he was designing the stations. Hence the early solid red disc roundels on his platforms.
What do you think?
Another thought...
OK so, Edward Johnston (1872-1944) and Leslie Green (1875-1908) weren't actually employed by Frank Pick at the same time, but they were almost the same age and might have known each other. Consider that both were relative unknowns before Pick gave them their commissions. Perhaps they had discussed these logo ideas before Green died, incidentally, the same year that the disc roundels appeared.
Hmmm...
Ponder ponder...