History
The station opened on 13 March 1933 as part of the Cockfosters extension, its original name being Enfield West. The station did not appear on the original plans to extend the Piccadilly line beyond Finsbury Park, which only provided for seven additional stations, however it served as the line's terminus for a brief period before Cockfosters station was opened.
The station building is a fine example of the architecture Charles Holden built for the Piccadilly Line extensions, with a large and imposing box-shaped ticket hall surrounded by lower structures containing shops. The ceiling of the booking hall is particularly monumental and bold. The whole design mirror proportions found in classical architecture, albeit in a distinctly 20th century structure. The dimensions of the ticket hall are approximately a "double-cube" (its front elevation is roughly twice its height and width). The station is similar to Holden's slightly earlier designs for Sudbury Town and Acton Town stations at the western end of Piccadilly Line. Oakwood Station is a Grade II* listed building.
Like other extensions of the London Underground lines, the opening of the Cockfosters extension stimulated the rapid development of new suburbs and much of the open countryside that existed in 1930 when construction started was quickly covered by new housing developments.
Read more about this topic: Oakwood Tube Station
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.”
—Derek Wall (b. 1965)
“Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)