 Station entrance |
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  Aldgate
Location of Aldgate in Central London |
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| Location | Aldgate |
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| Local authority | City of London |
| Managed by | London Underground |
| Platforms in use | 4 |
| Fare zone | 1 |
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| London Underground annual entry and exit | |
| 2005 | 4.438 million[1] |
| 2007 | 5.572 million[1] |
| 2008 | 6.24 million[1] |
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| 18 November 1878 | Opened |
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| List of stations | Underground · National Rail |
Coordinates: 51°30′58″N 0°04′55″W / 51.516°N 0.082°W
Aldgate tube station is a London Underground station located at Aldgate in the City of London.
The station is on the Circle Line between Tower Hill and Liverpool Street. It is also the eastern terminus of the Metropolitan Line. It is in Travelcard Zone 1, and its ticket office is part-time only.
Platforms 1 and 4 at Aldgate are two of the only three platforms on the network to be served exclusively by the Circle Line (the other being Platform 2 at Gloucester Road- which even can be used by District trains if necessary- i.e. during engineering work or disruption). All other Circle Line platforms are shared by the District, Metropolitan and/or Hammersmith & City Lines.
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Contents
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History
The station was opened on 18 November 1876 with the southbound extension to Tower Hill opening on 25 September 1882, completing the Circle. Services from Aldgate originally ran far further west than they do now, reaching as far as Richmond, and trains also used to run from Aldgate to Hammersmith (the Hammersmith & City Line now bypasses the station). It only became the terminus of the Metropolitan line in 1941. Prior to that, Metropolitan trains had continued on to the southern termini of the East London Line. The station was badly damaged by German bombing during World War II.
In 2005, one of the four bombs in the 7 July 2005 London bombings was detonated by Shehzad Tanweer on a Circle Line train that had left Liverpool Street and was close to Aldgate. Seven innocent commuters were killed in the explosion: Anne Moffatt, 46, Lee Baisden, 34, Benedetta Ciaccia, 30, Richard Ellery, 22, Richard Gray, 41, Carrie Louise Taylor, 24, and Fiona Stevenson, 29. Of the tube stations affected by the bombings, Aldgate was the first to be reopened, once police had handed back control of the site to London Underground following the extensive search for evidence. Once the damaged tunnel was repaired by Metronet engineers, the line was reopened, also allowing the Metropolitan Line to be fully restored, since the closure had meant all trains had terminated two stations early at Moorgate.
In literature
Aldgate tube station plays an important role in the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans (published in the anthology His Last Bow).
In the story, the body of a junior clerk named Cadogan West is found on the tracks outside Aldgate station, with a number of stolen plans for the Bruce-Partington submarine in his pocket. It seems clear enough that "the man, dead or alive, either fell or was precipitated from a train." But why, wonders Holmes, did the dead man not have a ticket?
It turns out that the body was placed on top of a train carriage before it reached Aldgate, via a window in a house on a cutting overlooking the Metropolitan Line. Holmes realises that the body only fell off the carriage roof when the train was jolted by the dense concentration of points at Aldgate.
See also
- Butt, R.V.J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-8526-0508-1. OCLC 60251199.
- Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 0-9068-9999-0. OCLC 228266687.
| Preceding station |  London Underground |
Following station | ||
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towards Hammersmith
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Circle line |
towards Edgware Road
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| Metropolitan line | Terminus |
Coordinates: 51°30′58″N 0°04′55″W / 51.516°N 0.082°W
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References
- ^ a b c "Customer metrics: entries and exits". London Underground performance update. Transport for London. 2003-2008. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/corporate/modesoftransport/tube/performance/default.asp?onload=entryexit. Retrieved 19 January 2010.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
