The Grade II listed West London station was designed in 1938
These days, London’s many Underground stations are not just appreciated for their convenience as transport hubs, but as architecturally significant structures.
Many of the stations are time capsules of remarkable building styles from history – and one of the most breathtaking examples can be found on the Central Line at Perivale station in West London.
Located in the pleasant leafy suburbs north of Ealing, the station boasts the sort of elegant curves and expansive glazed windows that would look right at home on a 1930s cinema. Originally designed in 1938, the building wasn’t completed until 1947 due to the interruption of the Second World War.
The station, which has since been awarded Grade II listed status by Historic England, was formerly known as Perivale Halt and was designed by Brian Lewis, the chief architect to the Great Western Railway. Lewis would later gain recognition for his masterplan for the National University in Canberra, Australia.
The building itself bears a striking resemblance to the distinctive style pioneered by the celebrated London Underground architect Charles Holden during the 1920s and 30s. Perivale formed part of the Central Line’s extension to West Ruislip, which itself was a component of the London Underground’s ambitious modernisation, known as the New Works Programme, which ran from 1935 to 1940.
According to Historic England’s listing for the station, its defining characteristics include a concave (curved inwards) red brick frontage and its façade (frontage), distinguished by an impressive clerestory window (a elevated section of wall featuring windows positioned above eye level to allow natural light into the station).
It also boasts distinctive reinforced concrete divisions between the windows and a lintel, which follows the concave plane of the façade and wraps around its corners. Attached to the brickwork on either side of the frontage is a striking pole-mounted roundel reading “UndergrounD”, complete with dashed underlining.
Inside, the ticket hall boasts a ceiling of exposed concrete beams, radiating outwards from the curved façade. A recess designated for telephones remains visible, with traces of the original three separate kiosks still noticable in the flooring.
The glazed curved roof of the ticket hall bathes the hall beneath in beautiful natural light, and there’s also a glazed waiting room, fitted with original timber benches at its western end, and its exterior walls retain the original poster display panels surrounded by black tiles.
It’s certainly a striking example of 1930s Underground architecture and transports us back to an era around World War Two. It’s easy to picture gentlemen in crisp suits and bowler hats waiting on the platforms for their journey into London for work.
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