The station entrance shown in the photos is on the south
side of the station in Adelaide Road. The station opened in June 1907 to serve
Chalf Farm and the surrounding area.
The Transport for London website (visit
link) tells us about the station:
"Summary of Building
Underground railway station. Built 1906-7 by the
Underground Electric Railways Co of London Ltd (UERL) under Charles Tyson Yerkes,
serving the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway (CCE&HR), later part of
the Northern Line. Designed by Leslie Green.
Details
Steel frame clad in brick, faced in ox-blood red
faience produced by the Leeds Fireclay Co Ltd.
Exterior
The station occupies a prominent site at the
convergence of Adelaide Road and Haverstock Hill, and has two elevations meeting
at an acute angle with a curved apex. 2 storeys high. It originally had an
opposing entrance and exit on both elevations; those on N side now blocked. S
elevation in Adelaide Road is the longest of all the Green stations and consists
of 8 pilastered bays arranged 3-1-1-3 with alternating half-bays, the triple
bays forming a continuous arcade, terminating in a half-bay at the W. Entrance
is in the penultimate bay to the W, while the former exit further E is now a
shop. The curved apex is accentuated by an overhanging upper floor with a
pedimented tripartite window. The ground floor was always a shop, originally an
Express Dairy, which also occupied the 3 adjacent bays on both sides of the
angle; the shop front is modern. The shorter N elevation has similar treatment
with 6 main bays arranged 2-1-1-2 of which the eastern single bay was an
entrance. Both elevations retain original windows to some bays, while others
have been been infilled with faience. Upper storey has timber Diocletian windows
in keyed semi-circular arches with egg-and-dart decoration and cartouches
between the springers of the arcaded bays, and a modillion cornice. Each
half-bay has a deeply hooded oeil-de-boeuf.
Above the entrance, the former exit on the N side, and
the shop front at the apex, are blue tile signs with white relief lettering
reading UNDERGROUND, added in 1908. Frieze lettering has otherwise been removed.
To the right of the entrance is a 1930s pole and roundel Underground sign.
Interior
Ticket hall retains a number of features including
moulded cornices, an early brass clock, six-panelled door with paterae, fluted
timber wall banding and railings enclosing the top of the stair. Tiling has been
replicated to the 1906 pattern. Some original mauve terrazzo flooring survives
in the disused exit area to the rear of the lifts. Original tiling in dark red
and cream survives in the spiral staircase and lower corridors; that to the
platforms replicated in 2005, apart from the soffit banding and some remnants of
directional signs.
History
The CCE&HR was one of three tube lines opened 1906-7 by
the UERL. The world's first deep-level tube line, the City & South London
Railway (C&SLR), had opened in 1890 from the City to Stockwell, and although a
flurry of proposals for further routes ensued, progress was hampered by lack of
capital until the Central London Railway Line (later the Central Line) opened in
1900. In 1901-2 the American transport entrepreneur, Charles Tyson Yerkes,
acquired four dormant companies: the CCE&HR; the Brompton & Piccadilly Circus
Railway and the Great Northern & Strand Railway (GN&SR), which were merged as
the GNP&BR, and the Baker Street & Waterloo Railway; the three were incorporated
into the UERL. Yerkes died in 1905 before the tube lines were completed. The CCE&HR,
or 'Hampstead Railway' or 'Tube', opened on 22 June 1907, running from Charing
Cross to Camden Town where it diverged, terminating at Highgate (now Archway) in
the north, and Golders Green in the north west, with 13 intermediate stations.
In 1910 the three UERL tubes were formally merged as the London Electric Railway
(LER). In 1924-6, the former CCE&HR and C&SLR lines were joined, becoming the
Northern Line in 1937.
Leslie Green (1875-1908) was appointed Architect to the
UERL in 1903 and designed 40 stations for the company in a distinctive Edwardian
Baroque house style clad in ox-blood faience. They followed a standardised
design and plan adapted to the site. Interiors comprised a ground-floor ticket
hall with lifts, a spiral stair down to lower corridors, and further stairs down
to the platforms which were usually parallel. The upper storey housed lift
machinery and office space. Ticket halls featured deep-green tiling with a
stylised acanthus leaf or pomegranate frieze, and ticket windows in aedicular
surrounds; few of these features now survive. Stairs, corridors and platforms
were faced in glazed tiles with directional signage, produced by various tile
manufacturers, each station with its unique colour scheme. Green suffered ill
health and his contract with UERL terminated at the end of 1907. He died the
following year at the age of 33.
Reasons for Designation as a Grade II listed
building
Chalk Farm Underground Station is designated for the
following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: a good example of a station
designed by Leslie Green to serve the CC&HR, later the Northern Line; situated
at the acute angle of the road junction, it is externally the most impressive
and distinctive of the surviving Green stations, and retains three early tiled
Underground signs, now rare * Interior: while altered, features of interest
survive including tiling at lower levels * Historic interest: the Yerkes group
of stations designed by Leslie Green illustrate a remarkable phase in the
development of the capital's transport system, with the pioneering use of a
strong and consistent corporate image; the characteristic ox-blood faience
façades are instantly recognisable and count among the most iconic of London
building types."