History
The station was built in two stages. The Northern Line station opened on 18 December 1890 as part of the first deep-level tube, the City & South London Railway (C&SLR). The Baker Street & Waterloo Railway (BS&WR) station opened on 5 August 1906, five months after the rest of the line. Although belonging to separate companies, the platforms were connected below ground from 10 August 1906.
The C&SLR station was similar in design to the station at Kennington. It was partially rebuilt in the 1920s when the C&SLR tunnels were modernised, and was rebuilt during the construction of the Elephant & Castle shopping centre and roundabout in the 1960s and again at the start of the 21st century, reopening on 12 December 2003. The BS&WR station building remains much as originally constructed and is a typical Leslie Green structure. The main alteration is a modern glass-sided and glass-topped flat-roofed extension abutting the original western elevation, giving access to three of the six arches. These arches, in a classic deep-red faience style, formed the original perimeter: two are infilled with street-facing shops.
The first baby to be born on the underground was born at the station in 1924. Press reports claimed that she had been named Thelma Ursula Beatrice Eleanor (so that her initials would have read T.U.B.E.) but this story later proved false, and she was named Marie Cordery.
Read more about this topic: Elephant & Castle Tube Station
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
“Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action—that the end will sanction any means.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)