Green Park Tour

The London Transport Museum began running tours of the disused parts of Green Park station in January 2025, with the tour being entitled, “Dover Street: Alight here for Green Park”, owing to this being the station’s original name, upon its opening by the Great Northern Piccadilly & Brompton Railway on the 15th December 1906, as it was on Dover Street itself that the original Leslie Green-designed surface building existed. All traces of this were demolished in the 1960s, although it was similar in appearance and position along the side street to that of Down Street’s surface building; this being the next station west.

The tour commenced by the station entrance that is located on the south side of Piccadilly, within Green Park itself; this entrance being opened in 2011 in preparation for London hosting the Olympic Games the following year.

After being led down to the Piccadilly line part of the station by our guides, we passed through an opened metallic door at a right-angled passageway. This took us away from the active station, and on to one of the two disused bridges over the eastbound Piccadilly platforms. This passageway would have led to the lifts and emergency spiral staircase prior to the station’s 1930s’ rebuilding, and now serves as a means of ventilating the platform area, as proven by the number of air extraction and circulation devices installed within it.

Over to the right, the 1906 tiling remained in place.

An adjacent board included a 1907 image of the original surface building, along with a 1923 image taken at platform level, with the light blue, white and cream tiling scheme seen above being largely obscured by advertisements and an early Bullseye-type roundel. Even this early on in the station’s history, the suffix “(St James)” had been added to station signage, owing to Dover Street not being a familiar location.

This 1914 station layout plan demonstrated how the lift passageways linked to the station. As with many Leslie Green stations, a one-way system existed, with people entering the station taking the right-hand passageway from the lifts, and people exiting taking the left-hand passageway, complete with its noticeably curved section approaching the lift entry area. Notice that “Dover Street” is crossed out in red pen, and the new name of Green Park is written above. The text to the left mentions the lifts having a rise of 80 feet, 3 inches (just over 24 metres), and the distance from the platforms to surface level being 93 feet, 6 inches (around 28 metres).

Nearby, this poster was produced to coincide with the completion of the station rebuilding and renaming on the 18th September 1933.

The first hints at this area’s first post-closure use appeared nearby.  An access between the former entry and exit passageways had been knocked through, with the surroundings painted the typical subdued colours seen throughout the disused areas that were re-purposed for use during the Second World War.

This side of the original passageway saw partitions constructed that allowed offices to be constructed, with a narrow corridor being present on the other side. The rough edging to the new passageway would have been where end walls for the offices were constructed. The offices themselves were used by London Transport itself after a bomb blast in 1940 caused damage to its above ground office complex at 55 Broadway.  Prior to this, the disused passageways had been used to house artworks that could have been damaged or destroyed, had their galleries also been targets for the bombs.

This period sign, indicating the direction of the exit lift (not the original station lifts; they had been removed by then), was still visible opposite the new passageway.

An original “To The Trains” tiled sign was still (mostly) intact. The arrow indicating the direction is obscured by the newer cable. The map attached beneath dates from around the 1933 remodelling.

This part of the passageway, approaching the foot of the emergency spiral stair shaft, was used as a telephone exchange and corresponding apparatus room.

Remains of the former partitioning were present on the passageway floor.

The sudden transition between the wartime painting and the original station tiling signified where part of the partitioning ended.

My camera decided that it didn’t want to focus whilst photographing the interior of the former emergency stair shaft, so here is a picture taken by my tour partner of said shaft while I struggle with the technology!

This 1941 plan of the created office space existed at the end of the passageway, with the new passageway link being visible. This area had been given over as a meeting room for Lord Ashfield (the-then Chairman of the London Passenger Transport Board) and other high-ranking members of London Transport. It appears bottom-left in the main part of the diagram, with the lower of the two lift shafts to the right, as it appears here. To see a larger version of this image, click here.

The meeting room’s extents were indicated by another sudden change from painted tiles to the tiles in their original colours.

After the war, the office space was removed, to allow for improved ventilation throughout the section of the station that remains open. Both former lift shafts were now home to a large extractor fan system. Still extant behind the gates, however, were the special tiles that carried the names of the companies that produced (Maw & Company) and affixed (W.B. Simpson) the tiles during the station’s construction.

Much of the lift landing area here is now home to electrical switchgear cabinets.

A second, larger “To The Trains” tiled indicator remained visible in a small gap between the modern machinery. The directional arrows appear to have been overwritten with marker pen.

Transferring over to the former ‘exit’ passageway, a blow-up of a portion of the plan seen previously indicated that we were now standing in an area allocated to Lord Ashfield himself as a bedroom.

The remains of the partition into the bedroom from the lift shaft (then used as a conference room and office) were still visible on the wall.

Further along this passageway, we encountered the curved section - the sharp curvature being a necessity during the station’s construction, owing to Dover Street being relatively narrow - where possible, construction of stations and lines was kept to being below public roads to avoid having to pay wayleave duties to the owners of properties above ground. The slight difference in appearance to the floor to the left of the yellow line indicates the former position of the corridor (on the left) and the offices (on the right).

A small portion of a “To The Stairs” tiled sign remained visible on the wall - the passageway allowing access now being blocked.

The witness marks of more removed partitioning remained noticeable a little further along the passageway.

The next big change for Green Park station came with the arrival of the Victoria line here on the 7th March 1969. This image shows a poster that was commissioned at the time, along with an example of the tiling applied to one of the new platform recesses.

The ventilation shaft that we found ourselves in now was not from the time of the Victoria line, however. The 1973 manufacturing dates of the tunnel ring segments indicated that it was constructed in preparation for the Fleet line, which would become the Jubilee line ultimately.

As with many of the cast iron tunnelling segments, these were produced by Stanton Ironworks, located near Ilkeston in Derbyshire; the “S&S” representing “Stanton & Staveley”.

Gaps in the tunnelling rings served as ventilation points for the Victoria line platforms.

At the other end of the shaft, a steep descent took us down to the Jubilee line platforms.

A veritable flight of steps led down to the lower ventilation points.

Once the shaft levelled out, the platforms were visible below; people awaiting the arrival of the  next train being completely oblivious to our presence.

This poster was produced in 1979 as a means of advertising the opening of the new line, along with indicating the stations and interchanges that it would serve.

As this portion of the shaft featured a mixture of tunnel rings carrying 1972 and 1973 manufacturing dates, construction is likely to have commenced at this end.

The stairs seemed more forgiving when we descended them, compared to when we had to re-ascend them!

The final part of the tour saw us visit a ventilation shaft that is sandwiched between the two Jubilee line platforms; the shaft is J-shaped, and becomes vertical quickly. This is what the similar ventilation shaft at Charing Cross would resemble at its base.

Daylight was visible at the top of the shaft.

The other end of the shaft ended abruptly with a concrete bung plugging the tunnel.