Bishopsgate Railway Station - History

History

The station was opened as Shoreditch by the Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) on 1 July 1840 to serve as its new permanent terminus when the railway was extended westwards from an earlier temporary terminus in Devonshire Street, near Mile End. The station was renamed Bishopsgate on 27 July 1847.

In 1862, the ECR amalgamated with a number of other East Anglian railway companies to form the Great Eastern Railway (GER). For a time the GER also used Fenchurch Street station as a London terminus but lack of capacity led the GER to build a new terminus for its services at Liverpool Street which opened in 1874. Bishopsgate station was closed to passenger traffic in November 1875 and was converted to a goods station which opened in 1881 and became known as Bishopsgate Goods Depot. A passenger station, Bishopsgate (Low Level) was provided on the new route into Liverpool Street.

As a goods station Bishopsgate handled very large volumes of goods from the eastern ports and was arranged over three levels with turntables and hoists allowing railway wagons to be moved individually around the station for loading and unloading. Incoming goods could be stored in the warehouse on site or transferred directly to road vehicles for onward transportation to their destinations.

A major fire on 5 December 1964 destroyed the station. Within 37 minutes of the first fire brigade crews arriving on scene, the scale of the blaze was so intense and widespread that 40 fire engines had been mobilised. In addition, 12 turntable ladders, two hose layers, two emergency tenders, and 235 firefighters battled the fire which killed two customs officials and destroyed hundreds of railway wagons, dozens of motor vehicles and millions of pounds worth of goods.

The station was closed and the upper-level structures were largely demolished. Over the next thirty years much of the site became derelict. Planit Events used the site for large parties using a huge marquee structure from 1998 to 2002, and subsequently also used the Brunel arches at street level, installing a steel staircase entrance from the upper level as well as another entrance at street level. Planit Events are currently constructing a permanent venue beneath Finsbury Square.

Following an extended period of planning, the entire site was demolished in 2004, with the exception of a number of Grade II listed structures: the Ornamental Gates on Shoreditch High Street and the remaining 850 feet (260 m) of the so-called "Braithwaite Viaduct", one of the oldest railway structures in the world and the second oldest in London, designed by John Braithwaite. The demolition of the former station made way for Shoreditch High Street railway station on the East London line extension in 2010, part of the new London Overground network, replacing Shoreditch-London Underground station to the east which closed in June 2006.