Hidden London Hangouts S3E15 - Marylebone

Follow the team on location to discover the secrets of Marylebone station.
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@ltmuseum
@alexgrundon
@siddyholloway
@ciphernorthsix
@hiddenlondonlau

[@jacksugden8190]

I spend 14 years working near this station ending September 2015, platforms were re tiles?, I know where the original lifts and station were, platforms entrance from what’s now the shopping areas, before the current escalators were installed, and keen to see this video and see what I had missed...

[@MossdaleNGaugeRailway]

At South Kensington there are some relics of a system using lights in boxes resembling cameras that was designed to help visually impaired passengers move around the station, dates from 1980s-ish.

[@ianhelps3749]

I remember the light boxes which would lead you on to the right escalator for particular main line stations - you would follow the yellow lights for Paddington, etc. Useful if you did not know your way around, and they were still in busy stations such as Waterloo in the 1970s. They are also referenced in one of the Paddington Bear stories wherein said bear takes his first trip on the Underground.

[@edgware9]

Interesting upbeat show thanks Alex, Chris & Laura . Travelling from Marylebone main line gives great view of the Met stations from Baker St (by passing Lords and Marlborough Rd and Finchley Road) running parallel to the Met even beyond Harrow as the trains overtake even the fastest Mets! The Great Central Railway was subsumed into the LNER and Harrow on the Hill used to feature both the LT roundel and LNER over its entrance. Another company the LNWR which ran parallel to the Bakerloo from Marylebone was the LNWR where its initial are feature in the stonework of the entrances to Harrow & Wealdstone & Hatch End.

[@jimmytustin3008]

I worked on the Unde4ground for 45+ years, guard then motorman then Station Supervisor, mainly on the Bakerloo. I worked out of the Elephant on the trains for approx. 16 years then came out Station Inspector at Marylebone then after Company Plan back to the Elephant until I retired in 2012. Could tell you more stories about M/bone....did you realise it has no staff toilets and staff have to use the Nat. Rail toilets on the concourse. When they get closed thru' vandalism staff have to go to stations either side?...at the top of the spiral stairs, the supervisor had to ensure the other side of the door was clear as the hotel had sleeping quarter's for its migrant staff and they often blocked their side of the door. Remember, this was an emergency exit from M/bone station. I crawled over most of the Elephant and have stories to tell about that. Would you be interested?

[@AdrianBridgman]

Another fascinating video. Curious unfinished look of the surface building in the 1925 photo discussed from 4.47. Page 63 of "Tiles of the UnexpecteD" has photo LTM 26161 which shows that the cornice and parapet were finished in oxblood. The left hand end frieze panel has the word "GREAT" in black lettering on a white background with the other panels in brick, suggesting that this dates from just at or before the opening in 1907. Presumably the frieze would have been completed like some of the stations on the Hampstead tube.

[@danielscott524]

I remember Embankment having the wayfinding lights in the early 80s especially getting from District/Circle to Bakerloo/Northern platforms.

[@tingewickmax]

I remember the indicator lights, mentioned in your notes and queries, in the '60's at the the then Charing Cross, now Embankment, station. They were back lit and mounted in rectangular bronze housings fitted at intervals to the escalator and passage tunnel roofs connecting the District/Circle platforms to the Bakerloo and Northern lines at that interchange. They indicated "via" destinations not the actual lines you were being directed to. They did not match the line's colours either they just used a set colour for a particular destination, as I remember it. On some installations there were up to 3/4 possible destinations shown, laid out in a line horizontally. I suppose they must date back to the days when escalators were fitted with bronze uplighters. I can still picture them in my minds eye. I was fascinated by them as a child, when I passed through this station, usually on the way to a visit to Oxford Street or the London Zoo with my mother. I lived in Victoria then so the Underground represented "railways" to me.

[@MichaelWillis]

Loved this - Marylebone (upstairs and down) is my favourite station on the Combine. I hadn't seen those photos of the original station or the rebuild on the concourse, now obscured by Boot's and the birthday card shop. And I remember from my early childhood those line-coded coloured lights which one of your listeners asked about - I think I remember them at Embankment as we used to travel up to Waterloo and beyond regularly. Thanks for an entertaining episode.

[@jacksugden8190]

Well done Alex, Chris and Laura. Excellent! I enjoyed it. So much more to that station. When I’m there next will look even more closer. Hope to see Siddy soon - I missed you. Get well soon.

[@discogareth]

Oh I’m looking forward to this one! I travel into Marylebone from Birmingham, so Marylebone tube is one of my most used.

[@paulgiffen6836]

Hi Team, fantastic show today what a amazing station, i am making a list of stations to visit when i can get up to London next time with my camera. GET WELL SOON SIDDY XX

[@unhappyschurrle2501]

Chris! Shouting at the screen over those light boxes! The old Museum layout pre-refurb in the late 00s had an example of them for interchanges for mainline terminals, Paddington was yellow and Waterloo was blue if I remember right. Was above an old wooden escalator to walk on towards a 1938 stock carriage? This is me trying to remember as an 8 year old, but think it may well have been 1950s as well! Also, a question for you all, what’s the most recently built bit of disused infrastructure you guys can tour around? Is there anything more recent than Charing Cross Jubilee? Should also say the obligatory thanks for keeping lockdown entertaining, as someone who works on the railways and been going to LTM as long as I remember, getting to see back of house where I work is always exciting, and getting to see it elsewhere even more so! Keep up the good work, always watching whether live or catch-up!

[@alexgrundon2346]

Love a bit of shouting at the screen.

[@jimdarrell441]

Another wonderful episode! Get well soon Siddy! The boys did a great job holding down the fort whilst the girls took the night off!

[@chriggle1]

Sorry I missed you all live, but I watched you all in peace and quiet as I had the house to myself. Marylebone was a real surprise, that stairwell/vent was amazing, urban meeting art deco tiling. Such beauty in form and function.

[@samanthaelmhurst8518]

Wonderful signage, and oh those tiles! Double spring in my step now having just booked us two tickets for the Grand Opening at the LTM on 17th May - yippee!!!!!

[@ulazygit]

Oh boy! Another cracking hangout ... loved the walk through of the staircases and tiles, plus the original tiling on the platform - yes there are a few still like this - I remember as a boy travelling to Leicester Square (dental hospital visits) seeing part-names on platforms just like the Marylebone one - sort of sparked off an interest in the Underground that has grown and stayed with me for over 40 years! Should I be worried with the big reveal? 😂 Keep them coming, gang!

[@DavidShepheard]

Thanks for another great episode. I found it very interesting that you all agreed how the original tiles were clearly superior to the new ones, when I couldn't agree less. I've lived in London, all my life. And, as I grew up, my local Underground station waiting room was closed, my station toilet got demolished and the station waiting room one stop north of my station was vandalised in an arson attack and the demolished, instead of restored. The "new' aluminium body District Line trains we got (to replace the old red trains) got vandalised by unimaginative graffiti artiists, who painted and scratched initials onto the sides and scratched the windows too. It just gave me the sense that nobody, in the UK government cared about the passengers, our stations and our trains, and that maintenance was being funded on a do-minimum basis. And, what was British Rail, was worse for me, with my local BR station having death trap stairs and those trains all having the deadly slam-door carriages. The low point for me was the Clapham Junctiion and King's Cross tragedies, where those decades of neglect and underinvestment actually harmed passengers and made a disgrace of the people who were running our public transport down. But then, finally, we started to get some investment into the passenger experience. And, at the same time, we got some civil rights campaigners, who slowly convinced me that holding onto old stuff, just because it is old, is a bad thing. I used to love the Routemaster buses. I thought they were awesome for all the reasons people love them. And I thought they had more character than the buses that followed... ...until the day I heard that protestors were crawling underneath and causing delays. It turned out that those protestors had no working legs. And, as soon as I listened to them, I realised that my love of Routemasters was standing in the way of those people being able to travel across the capital of England and the UK. I realised that Routemasters were bad and that everybody arguing to run every second bus as a Routemaster or to run some routes as "heritage routes" was advocating for us "keeping some buses that wheelchair users could not get on". So it's great that London Transport Museum preserves some Routemasters, but it's also great to not have a single Routemaster in passenger service. Those tagged trains finally got a paint job. And I found out that it was a special paint job. To me the red, white and blue bits looked great. But when I realised the changes in colours were there to help partially sighted people work out where the train met the platform and find the holes where the doorways were, I never wanted to see older trains. Again, it's great that the London Transport Museum depot has trains with the old paint jobs and the original fittings, but that stuff was sub-optimal for disabled people and is a relic of the past attitude towards serving (or not serving) those members of the public. I loved the arrival of the dot matrix signs on London Underground. They are great for everyone, but especially great for deaf passengers, who don't hear the PA system. And I'm actually sad that District Line passengers at Earl's Court, have been stuck with that old arrow sign that does not let people know what the second and third train is going to be. It's a beautiful sign, but it's less helpful than the dot matrix signs that are hidden at the other end of the platform. Likewise, when someone told me they didn't like the new Central Line trains constantly talking at them, my response was "It's to help blind people. Get over it." That sort of stuff is the future. I hope that you do an episode on it one day. I used to go to Angel Station, back when it had a single island platform. And that place was scary, as there was nothing you could go lean against if you felt dizzy. I was so glad that it got a second platform. I can't wait for the last two island platforms on the Northern Line to be got rid of. So I'm hoping that the Hidden London team goes and makes a full 3D record of those old stations, so that people can see what they used to be like, when they have been improved. Getting back to the tiles, where you see character in the crazing of the tiles, I see tiles catching small bits of grime and looking dirty (even when they are clean). And I see damaged tiles looking like they might catch on things. When the middle bit of the Central Line, the middle bit of the Piccadilly Line and some of the other central London stations got those makeovers, towards the end of the last century, I saw it as renewal. And I loved it. If I felt tired, and there were no seats, I could lean against the wall or sit with my back against the wall, and I wasn't worried about getting dirty. The new designs were interesting and things like the film sprockets at Lester Square were very easy to spot out of the corner of your eye. Where the early railways came up with different patterns of coloured tiles, to help illiterate people try to identify stations, if they can learn the colours and shapes, things like the cameo pictures of Sherlock Holmes and his pipe, on the Bakerloo Line do that job so much better. And I enjoy being on those platforms. When I go to Embankmant Station and hear the preserved "Mind the gap" announcements, I like the fact that Oswald Laurence's voice is there... ...but I will be glad when someone replaces the end of the Embankmant loop, with a new straight platform that allows for level boarding (and hopefully one equipped with platform edge doors). I hope you can get a Hidden London Hangout done for every active station on the network, and also do some sort of 3D scanning, to permanently record what they look like now, but I also hope that our stations continually become more accessible, more safe and cooler. And if the price of that is the removal of some heritage features, I'm totally cool with that. One thing I hope you can do one day, is to build a digital platform set, so that you can project onto it all the platform designs and show how the platforms change, as they are refurbished and things like dot matrix signs are added.

[@tmb8807]

Really interesting. Been past that 'secret' door so many times and caught a glimpse of stairs behind it, wondering where they went. For such a simple two-platform station it's a bit of a trek from the platforms to the escalators now, but the relocation explains it. Wondered where the lift shaft was but you explained it as I was writing this comment! As an aside I knew an old chap who grew up in the area in the 1920s and he always pronounced it MAH-lee-bun, so I go with that.

[@bethvergara]

Hello new friend here watching from Philippines and sending my support ❤️

[@alexgrundon2346]

Welcome!!

[@b_altmann]

There are still tiles available as irregular in colour as the old ones. They always advise to open several boxes at once and mix them to get good results

[@drew4744]

Great episode! Get well soon Siddy and looking forward to the patreon content!

[@wegladstone1967]

O nostalgia! In my youth I used Marylebone station a lot, both underground and British Railways (as was then) as I attended St Marylebone Grammar School (long closed). It was on corner of Marylebone Road and Lisson Grove (hence that name proposed for station). Pronounciation was: 'Marry - le - bone'. I also remember the coloured directional signs mentioned, especially at what was Charing Cross (now Embankment). They were rectangular hung from the ceiling behind lights with destinations and arrows (e.g. Euston in black). They were just as contributor described and very useful.

[@b_altmann]

Nice tube patterns!

[@lizbellamy1]

If the surface station building was bombed, how did the people down on the platforms get out? Did they have to get evacuated from an adjacent station? I’m currently binge watching all the hangouts - I just find the history and the architecture fascinating. Well done for sharing this fantastic heritage.

[@pb4rton]

Thank you for this tour. I look forward to seeing more!

[@BigA1]

I had problems trying to orientate the underground station entrance (as depicted in the black and white photo) against Marylebone Station I know today. The photo shows you coming off the street and immediately going down stairs. Today, you descend to the Bakerloo line via escalators which are well inside the main Marylebone building. So a means of locating the old station with the new (either by map or other means) would have been useful. That said, I really enjoyed your discussion of Marylebone as it is a station I use from time to time.

[@MossdaleNGaugeRailway]

Hope you include the shortcut from the platforms to the basement of the Travelodge

[@kevinreed9232]

Great episode as always..get well soon Siddie. am I correct one of The Beatles films A Hard Days Night was filmed at Marylebone Station? thank you.

[@laurahilton3210]

Yes it was! 😀

[@srfurley]

@@laurahilton3210 Until it was closed by the pandemic I was pne pf the projectionists at the David Lean Cinema in Croydon and we recently ran this for a dementia friendly screening.

[@isashax]

Was that a maker's tile in the spiral staircase? I was waiting for you to mention it!

[@moelSiabod14334]

Do any plans exist of Marylebone station how it was intended to be when truly finished as the extension of the Great Central main line en route to the south coast and onward to France and Paris via the first channel tunnel.This would have become the HS 1 and HS 2 of their time.

[@davidstone408]

Watch some back episodes - the equipment has seriously been upgraded

[@rwjenkins]

I see Siddy pointing to some writing on the wall in the spiral staircase at 21:40 but it doesn't get mentioned and we don't get a closer look at it. Is that a maker's tile? It looks a bit different from some of the others we've seen in earlier episodes, with all the text justified left instead of centred. Earlier in the episode you're talking about the different keystone pattern that they used here, I'm guessing the different makers had their own patterns that they used? Curious to know who made these.

[@alexgrundon2346]

I *think* it was graffiti rather than a makers’ tile

[@siddyholloway8404]

It was graffiti! It said Tottenham FC 😅

[@rwjenkins]

@@siddyholloway8404 I wonder how long it had been there!

[@alexgrundon2346]

@gbtextiles and @allthemoquette_ (note the underscore) as well as @camirafabrics and @wallacesewell on insta will keep you entertained.

[@chriggle1]

@gbtextiles should be asked to design a Moquette! Her designs are exquisite