Westminster Tube Station - History - Sub-surface Station

Sub-surface Station

Parliament Square Construction of the Metropolitan District Railway
near Westminster station, 1866

The station was opened as Westminster Bridge on 24 December 1868 by the steam-operated Metropolitan District Railway (MDR) (now the District line) when the railway opened the first section of its line from South Kensington. It was originally the eastern terminus of the MDR and the station cutting ended at a concrete wall buffered by timber sleepers. The approach to the station from the west runs in cut and cover tunnel under the roadway of Broad Sanctuary and diagonally under Parliament Square. In Broad Sanctuary the tunnel is close to Westminster Abbey and St Margaret's church and care was required to avoid undermining their foundations when excavating in the poor ground found there.

The original station building was a temporary structure positioned over the tracks and the platforms were sheltered with individual awnings rather than the all-over glazed roof provided at the MDR's other stations. Access to the station was via a passageway from Bridge Street and a pedestrian subway under the road. On 30 May 1870, the railway was extended to Blackfriars.

The MDR connected to the Metropolitan Railway (MR, later the Metropolitan line) at South Kensington and, although the two companies were rivals, each company operated its trains over the other's tracks in a joint service known as the Inner Circle. On 1 February 1872, the MDR opened a northbound branch from its station at Earl's Court to connect to the West London Extension Joint Railway (WLEJR, now the West London Line) at Addison Road (now Kensington (Olympia)). From that date the Outer Circle service began running over the MDR's tracks. The service was run by the North London Railway (NLR) from its terminus at Broad Street (now demolished) in the City of London via the North London Line to Willesden Junction, then the West London Line to Addison Road and the MDR to Mansion House – at that time the eastern terminus of the MDR.

From 1 August 1872, the Middle Circle service also began operations through South Kensington, running from Moorgate along the MR's tracks on the north side of the Inner Circle to Paddington, then over the Hammersmith & City Railway (H&CR) track to Latimer Road, then, via a now demolished link, on the WLEJR to Addison Road and the MDR to Mansion House. The service was operated jointly by the H&CR and the MDR. On 30 June 1900, the Middle Circle service was shortened to terminate at Earl's Court, and, on 31 December 1908, the Outer Circle service was withdrawn from the MDR tracks. As part of efforts to improve competitiveness, the MDR's tracks were electrified during 1905 and new electric rolling stock was brought into use. In 1907, the station was given its present name, Westminster.

By the mid 1890s the station entrance had been incorporated into a larger building. In 1922, a new entrance and canopy was designed for the Bridge Street entrance by Charles Holden and, in 1924, he designed a plainly rendered replacement elevation for the eastern entrance on to the Embankment. These were the first of many projects by the architect for the London Electric Railway (the main forerunner of London Transport and Transport for London). The station platforms were also refurbished with new wall tiling in the green, blue, black and white tiling scheme used later by Holden on many stations of the period and still visible at neighbouring St James's Park station. In 1949, the Metropolitan line-operated Inner Circle route was given its own identity on the tube map as the Circle line.

Between late 1962 and early 1964 the east ends of the platforms were extended to allow longer 8-car trains to be operated. This involved carefully enlarging the tunnels under the Metropolitan Police's original headquarters at New Scotland Yard (now Norman Shaw Buildings). The station was completely rebuilt to incorporate new deep-level platforms for the Jubilee line when it was extended to the London Docklands in the 1990s. During the works, the level of the sub-surface platforms was lowered to enable ground level access to Portcullis House. This was achieved in small increments carried out when the line was closed at night.