Holloway Road Underground Station – Heritage Statement

Listing details:

Holloway Road underground station was designated as a Grade II listed building on 17th May 1994. The listing entry describes the station building as:

“Station for the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway, now part of Underground. 1906 by Leslie Green. Claret-coloured faience and brick, tile internally, roof obscured by parapet. Two storeys, six-window range. The ground floor consists of flat-arched bays divided by pilasters, from left to right: former exit, now partly blocked, with late 20th Century entrance; blank and tiled; late 20th Century shop front; station entrance; former shop front with original entrance and top lights, otherwise blocked; works entrance with iron gates, perhaps original. Entablature with raised lettering to frieze: ‘EXIT, HOLLOWAY RD STATION, G N P & B RY’, the present entrance bay having more recent awning obscuring the frieze, with standard inter-war lettering designed by Edward Johnston. The first-floor windows form an arcade of segmental arches with egg and dart mouldings and keystones; cartouches at the springing of the arches and at the corners of the building; parapet rebuilt.

Ticket hall: tiled dado with Art Nouveau frieze to part of the north, west and east walls and central piers; south wall retiled and altered for late 20th century lifts. North wall has pedimented architraves in tilework to three ticket windows with integral lettering, and sign lamps over probably of inter-war date; balustrade to stairs with fluted hexagonal newels and decorative iron rail. Door in north wall with original architrave and panelled door of original design.

Stairwell and passages have cream and brown tiling in part and the lift lobby has architraves to the former lift entrance with bracketed cornices, that to the right now missing. The north and south platforms are tiled in cream and brown with bands of tiling over the barrel roof and aedicular tile panels indicating the way out; rusticated voussoirs to tunnel entrances. On the north platform there are three tile panels lettered ‘HOLLOWAY ROAD’ on the platform side, and, on the train side, one small tile panel lettered ‘TO FINSBURY PARK’. On the south platform there are two tile panels lettered ‘HOLLOWAY ROAD’ on the platform side, and, on the train side, one small tile panel lettered ‘TO HAMMERSMITH’. The southern passage between the platforms has tow tile panels lettered ‘TO THE TRAINS TO HAMMERSMITH’ and ‘TO THE TRAINS TO FINSBURY PARK’.

This is one of the best surviving examples of the underground stations designed by Green for Charles Tyson Yerkes, the entrepreneur responsible for what became the core of the Piccadilly, Bakerloo and Northern (Charing Cross) lines; it also has one of the best surviving interiors.”

Proposed works:

The proposed work is to convert the existing safety critical wet fire platform hydrant system to a dry dropper system due to the deterioration of the area’s main supply flow and pressure. The dry riser inlet is to be located on the main facade of Holloway Road Underground Station in the blocked off former station exit which has been out of use since at least the 1970’s. The non-public equipment room behind this wooden facade will also contain a new top up tank and pipe work will lead from this and the inlet box into the existing vent shaft where it will drop down to the lower level served by the lifts (see drawing TLL-P045-H278-FIR-DRW-00001 Rev: C01).

At the lower lift landing level it is proposed to install an outlet box in the lower lift landing area. It will be fitted into the louvred panel that blocks off the bottom of the vent shaft which, incidentally formerly housed unique and short lived double spiral ! The other visible change will be pipe work that will drop down from the Platform 1 (westbound) overbridge and curve down the wall to connect with existing pipe work in the platform invert which is the void beneath the platform slab (see drawing TLL-P045-H278-FIR-DRW-00003 Rev: C01). The pipe will be finished to match the adjacent existing powder coated containment.

Apart from the inlet and outlet boxes and Platform 1 pipe work, no other change or other intrusion into public areas across the station will be made, as the existing outlet cabinets on the platforms will remain unchanged although the equipment within them will be upgraded.

Overall, it is not considered that neither the inlet and outlet boxes nor the platform level pipe would have a detrimental impact on the character and appearance of the listed building. The external inlet box will cause minimal damage to the non-original wall and any additional damage will be made good. Similarly the outlet box will not affect any of the elements of the station that are of heritage significance in the area of the spiral stairs. Additionally, such features as inlet and outlet boxes are a common element in all stations whether listed or not.

From the L.T. Museum collection - station frontage on 26 July 1976.

Photograph of the facade of the Holloway Road Station illustrating that the addition of the inlet box at this location will be insignificant in effect to the heritage significance of the Leslie Green facade.

Photograph of lower lift landing level. The outlet box is proposed for the right-hand side of the further of the louvred archways.

Photograph of platform level. Pipe work would run out and down from the overbridge across the left hand containment box and then, following the curve of the wall, down the left side of the gap between the two containment boxes into the platform invert.