Hidden London Hangouts S3E8 - Marlborough Road

The team reveal elusive disused station of the Metropolitan line that has been hiding in plain sight for 82 years.
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[@RoyCousins]

Did anyone notice that the front of the building has been altered at some time after the station closed. It now looks symmetrical, with four large arched windows, two either side of the arched main entrance. But when it was built, the right hand side was a shop front (tea shop), almost identical to the original St. Johns Wood Road. I have vague memories of passing under the remains of the glass roof on the train as a young child. The glass had all gone and the remaining metal was a twisted wreck, so I'm not surprised it was taken down. I love the Hidden London Hangouts videos. They are one of my favorite KZbin series, so I'm glued to my screen every Saturday evening to see what gems the enthusiastic and knowledgeable team have come up with.

[@alexgrundon2346]

Roy you’re LOVELY for saying that. The Hangouts give our weekends a treat or two as well and we love the live chat and comments that come in too. Honestly can’t thank you and every other viewer enough for being with us x

[@ljrigsbee]

Not just a tea room, but a whole buffet as well according to the sign. Shame on you, Alex, for making poor Mr Nix go out in the rain alone! :)

[@alexgrundon2346]

Treat ‘em mean. Keep ‘em keen 🤣 x

[@mrcogginsgarage7062]

Alex that last reply was really thoughtful of you,thanks all of you for making lockdown a lot more bearable.

[@alexgrundon2346]

Big love. Spoke for us all, I reckon

[@themistocleszammit]

Concerning the fare on that ticket. When I was a child in Edinburgh in the 1960s a 3d bus fare got me just about anywhere in the city. So 4d in 1906 to get from Trafalgar Square to Marlborough Rd was a fortune!

[@Buckstom]

In the film "Metroland" (1972) with John Betjemin, John can be seen walking out of the Steak Restaurant which was in Marlbrough Road station booking hall and he also opines that it was the nearest station to his future Parents in law. John is also seen standing on the emergency platform which Chris took the photo of from his stalled train.

[@edgware9]

Unlike Siddy & Laura, this stretch of the Met is my home patch. Over many years I have always marvelled going through the 3 ghost stations especially Marlborough Road. I grew up in NW London and listening to family memories of the growth of Metroland, before the 1930s, the whole area with the exception for the St Albans Road (A5) was essentially undeveloped and semi rural. St John's Wood was until then an exclusive area with villas for prosperous families, not a railway demographic especially as there was easy omnibus & hackney cab access so close to central London, a more comfortable ride instead of having to ascend & descend stairs particularly for ladies in their clothes of the time. It was the 1939 Bakerloo extension that changed the area with the building of large blocks of flats & arrival of a middel class resident.. (btw I can remember Paris had 1st class carriages and punched tickets well into 1970s.)

[@peebee143]

What glorious weather we had, today!

[@samanthaelmhurst8518]

beautiful, the sort of day you want to go on a tube journey above ground!

[@jacksugden8190]

Yesterday 9/3/21 was sunny, today 10/3/21 cloudy, 100% rain ☔️ .

[@shoutyshouty]

The station building is now mosly used by LUL for carrying out maintenance on the tracks. The rail workers would normally enter the tracks from the right hand side of the old station. The station is also used as a power sub-station to help provide extra electricity to the tracks as the new S-Stock trains with their air conditioning and more powerful motors need more electrical power than the old A-Stock.

[@dazzlingdaz187]

Loved the episode as usual. Another place to hangout and hope that Siddy and Laura can open a cafe one day!

[@alexgrundon2346]

You can have the table by the window with the best view, Dazzle

[@longbranchmike7846]

Original Swiss Cottage episode please!

[@triviabuff5682]

I found that station in 2011, when there were still small sun shades over the windows at the front, and it was painted matt black.

[@alexgrundon2346]

YES! That was possibly shortly after the restaurant shut. London Underground has painted it cream now it’s in use for them so that when graffiti “artists” (sigh) do their worst, it can be obliterated with a plain and readily available colour.

[@kevinreed9232]

Great episode as always. all four of you are lovely people. thank you all so much for making Saturday evenings something to look forward to. keep safe fantastic four.

[@alexgrundon2346]

😘😘 we really appreciate your kind words x

[@imranzazai7404]

London is very nice I am your new subscriber from Afghanistan.

[@alexgrundon2346]

Hello Afghanistan! Welcome to our club! Hope you enjoy our shows!

[@paulgiffen6836]

Hi team, another fantastic show today, love the metropolitan line.

[@alexgrundon2346]

Thank you for sticking with us on this mad journey, Paul

[@darrelljim]

Another fantastic episode! Thanks to you all. Last week was the 1st time I ever watched an episode on the telly and it was fab! Other than missing out on the commentary, it was just like having you lot in my home with me. So much good stuff!!! I could smell the air as you were walking down the road together there and Alex, don't care what anybody says, you look great in that cap! I'm now going to have to give that Christian Bale movie a second watch, as I thought it to be quite dismal when I first saw it over 20 years ago. Laura's observations on the chess game advert were spot on as well.

[@alexgrundon2346]

Next time I wear that cap, I’ll think of you!

[@adamdenning1]

Yes please to Swiss Cottage

[@chrissyellis222]

The Chinese restaurant was called Royal China, I went there quite often in early 2000s, food and atmosphere was wonderful. I never knew it was an old station.

[@simonbiggs9102]

By far the best episode

[@justin423]

If it stayed unchanged from Latin, a plural of census would be census. (4th declension) But in English, you add the es or ses for censuses.

[@alexgrundon2346]

You are a genius. Thank you.

[@skyrules2007]

Great episode this week team. It would be lovely to see the surface building restored to its previous, paint-less, condition. As usual, we watched this weeks episode “on delay” on Sunday evening Brisbane time, rounding out our weekend. This week we followed it up by watching the episode of The Architecture the Railways Built featuring a beardless Chris Nix showing Tim Dunn around 55 Broadway. The episode aired “down below” a couple of weeks ago. Lovely to see more of the beautiful building.

[@alexgrundon2346]

I wonder whether Nix shaves his beard when he’s presenting with the other bloke so only one of them has a beard at any time...a bit like a weather cock....

[@skyrules2007]

@@alexgrundon2346 😄

[@fintytin5771]

Your charming vids are the highlight of my weekend. !! Any chance of you doing either of South Kentish Town or York Road disused. ??

[@alexgrundon2346]

FINTY! Thank you! Yes to both!!!

[@Robslondon]

Love the old ticket!

[@michaelherrick6280]

Greetings from Connecticut. Really love the Hangouts. I spent three weeks in London in May, 2018. Literally and actually wandered all over. Loved the Tube and the busses. I have £10 in my Oyster Card. Is it still good? I really want to use it again! Loved the London Transport Museum. The buzz and hum of children was exciting and wonderful. Much more fun (especially for us little kids) than the V&A and the British Museum. You have shown some photos of old tickets. I’m curious about ticket prices and wages of various trades compared to today. Perhaps Chris can answer? Could be an interesting episode. Thanks for interesting and enjoyable videos.

[@mapala78]

Chris you crossed the road on a RED light !

[@alexgrundon2346]

He used to be an amber gambler....

[@unittaskforce]

I knew zero about this station so a very interesting episode. Thanks for a great insight.

[@cornellwaters9089]

🍑 Thank You!

[@epicridesandtours]

Interesting to hear the "correct" pronunciation of Fresnel! During nine years of serving in the Royal Signals, it was universally pronounced "Freznell". The purpose of such a lens is to concentrate a light into a narrow beam. We Signallers used the term "Fresnel zones" to describe the propagation patterns of a directional radio wavefront. Sounds technical, I know. (But you'd be surprised how many poorly educated people could understand it!)

[@jacksugden8190]

I used to use Aldwych - Holloway Road until it’s closure in 1994, another building by Leslie Green opened in 1907, it’s Grade II listed. Wikipedia pointed out Strand station was built on the site of the Royal Strand Theatre, which had closed on 13 May 1905 and been demolished. Construction of the station began on 21 October 1905, I understand that the old station was haunted.

[@isashax]

If you go to Google Street view, you can still see the Chinese restaurant in the 2008 view! It was all painted black!

[@JamesThePlonker]

💙💙

[@alexgrundon2346]

😉 hang in there. We’re all doing the same x

[@alexmckenna1171]

I'm slightly confused about the operation of this station. If it was only one-track operation, was there only one platform at Marlborough Road? Would trains going South and stopping at MB be going the wrong way to the non-stopping trains? (Were there non-stoppping Met trains?)

[@alexgrundon2346]

It was a passing loop. So imagine one track splits into two, with two platforms. Then the train proceeds along another single track. Those single portions of track usually have a token (a lump of wood or something more sophisticated) the only one driver can have in their possession. Only that driver can occupy that single track, to avoid crashes. Maybe we can explain this for you in an episode

[@johnburns4017]

I went to the Chinese restaurant regularly. The ticket windows were still there.

[@edbridges1164]

If you look carefully at the Passimeter at 18:07 could it possibly be that the Barrier had some sort of device to count passenger Entry? Could it possibly have made a "click" sound and the man in the box count possibly or have some sort of device in the box to count? I seem to remember someone mention "could Passimeter mean Pass-Meter?" So is it possible

[@cr5418]

Hello! In the black and white photo of the ticket hall here at Marlborough, what was that rather grand object at the front left of the picture? Thank you :)

[@RobinBull1968]

Why did south east London and Kent miss out on Tube services? Sounds like a great subject for an episode to me.

[@bynleyjones5419]

IF there is no count er in the ticket office how did they know,how many people want through

[@stevieinselby]

Alex saying "Like Dick!" definitely doesn't need to be taken out of context at all 😉

[@pb4rton]

Does anybody know if this is visible from the Jubilee line, or is it only visible from the Metropolitan line?

[@jimmyjung9510]

Only on the Metropolitan line (the Jubilee line runs on a completely different, albeit very close line at this point). It's just about equidistant from Baker St. and Finchley Road stations.

[@stevewebb7030]

My wife and I have watched all the Hangouts since they first started last year, and we have enjoyed every one of them. Since seeing the Marlborough Road and St. Johns Wood Road episodes recently, I have come across a bit of footage of a driver’s view from Baker Street to Aylesbury dated 1910, which shows fleeting glimpses of these stations as the train passes through. There are a great many fascinating items to see, especially the section from Uxbridge to Aylesbury which at that time was part of the Met Line and steam powered. I imagine that this footage would be of great interest to those of your many followers who, like us, had not seen it before. It originates from the BFI so there’s probably a more complete version out there somewhere. It has been uploaded in various forms by a few people but here is one link. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fpOQZWdqlNiGo5Y

[@TheRollthedice]

its good-but getting too camp!

[@alexgrundon2346]

You’re joking? Too camp?? This is tame! Thanks for watching though

[@MrStevetmq]

Why paint over graffiti? No need to answer that. You Brits seem to be obsessed. Graffiti is part of social history.

[@powerballminep67]

Interesting subject but too much inane banter for me.