Great Portland Street Underground Station - Great Portland Street, London, UK
N 51° 31.427 W 000° 08.627
30U E 698136 N 5711941
Great Portland Street tube station is at the northern end of Great Portland Street where Marylebone Road and Euston Road meet.
Waymark Code: WMJPAM
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 12/12/2013
Views: 4
The station building is Grade II listed with the entry at
the
English Heritage website telling us:
Underground Station - II
Underground station with shops. c.1912 Metropolitan Line station. Cream
faience tile faced with slate mansard roof. Elliptical plan with entrances
in slightly advanced pavilions at cardinal points and perimeter shops
surrounding booking hall-concourse. Free Classical style. 2 storeys. East
and west pavilions, with rusticated quoins, have central, semicircular
arched, keystoned entrances flanked by square headed keystoned openings; 1st
floor with 2 architraved windows alternating with 3 architraved panels.
North pavilion 4 windows wide with central semicircular arched entrance in
rusticated surround flanked by semicircular arched opening and blind recess
each side. South pavilion single storeyed finishing at 1st floor cornice
continuous around building. In between pavilions are shops and windows on
ground floor and alternating casemented windows and panels on 1st floor, as
on east and west pavilions; in north-east and north-west quadrants shops are
separated by engaged Doric columns. Crowning cornice and blocking course.
Concourse top lit with square Doric piers, stone faced with marble plinths,
encircling c.1930 booking office under altered lantern; pilasters to outer
perimeter flanking shop fronts. Original banded tilework to south wall and
stairs down to platforms; 1930s tiled geometric paving to concourse floor.
Wikipedia tells us about the station:
Great Portland Street is a London
Underground station near Regent's Park. It is between Baker Street and
Euston Square on the Hammersmith & City, Circle and Metropolitan lines. It
is in Travelcard Zone 1. The Great Portland Street station building is
listed as a building of National Significance.
The station was part of the world's first underground railway, the
Metropolitan Railway, which opened between "Bishop's Road" (now Paddington)
on the Hammersmith & City line and "Farringdon Street" (close to the
present-day Farringdon station). It was opened on 10 January 1863 as
"Portland Road", renamed "Great Portland Street and Regents Park" in 1923
and changed to its present name on 1 March 1917.
The current structure was built in 1930 on a traffic island on the
Marylebone Road at its intersection with Great Portland Street and Albany
Street. Its construction is a steel framed cream terracotta clad exterior,
with the perimeter providing shops and originally a car showroom with office
space over the station. Great Portland Street was at a major sales location
for the motor industry. It was designed by the architect C.W. Fowler and
Grade II listed in January 1987.
Local points of interest include Regent's Park, and the Post Office Tower.
The station is very close to Regent's Park station, which is on the Bakerloo
line.
The station is across the street from the main building of International
Student House, a student residence and hostel and is also near Harley Street
medical district, famous for its doctors and surgeons.
The station is within easy walking distance of Regent's Park and Warren
Street tube stations.