Brompton Road Tube Station - History

History

It was opened on 15 December 1906 by the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway (GNP&BR). The station was located at the junction of Brompton Road and Cottage Place. Although it was convenient for both the Brompton Oratory and the Victoria and Albert Museum, it saw little traffic and, by October 1909, some services passed it without stopping.

The station closed on 4 May 1926 due to the General Strike, and did not reopen until 4 October of that year with services only calling there on weekdays initially. Sunday services were finally restored on 2 January 1927. As before, it was little used, to the extent that two of its lifts were removed and relocated elsewhere and the ticket office was closed.

When the adjacent Knightsbridge station was modernised with escalators replacing lifts, it was provided with a new southern entrance that was built closer to Brompton Road station, reducing its catchment area. When the new entrance for Knightsbridge station opened on 30 July 1934 Brompton Road station closed.

Just prior to the outbreak of World War II the street level building together with the lift shafts and lower western passages were sold to the War Office for use by the 1st Anti-Aircraft Division. During the war, it was the Royal Artillery's Anti-Aircraft Operations Room for central London. This use was discontinued in the 1950s. It is currently used as the Town Headquarters (THQ) of the University of London Air Squadron, the University of London Royal Naval Unit and 46F (Kensington) Squadron Air Training Corps.

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