Bank and Monument stations

:"For the station called Monument on the Tyne and Wear Metro, see Monument Metro station"Bank and Monument are interlinked stations, spanning the length of King William Street in the City of London. Together they form the seventh busiest station on the network, servicing five London Underground lines, plus the Docklands Light Railway, which runs into Bank. The stations are officially one station, known operationally as the Bank-Monument complex, although the separate names remain in use on station entrances, platforms and the tube map.

The two parts of the combined station take their names from the nearby Bank of England and the Monument to the Great Fire of London. The complex is in Travelcard Zone 1.

History

Metropolitan Inner Circle Completion Railway, 1884

The Metropolitan Railway (MR) and Metropolitan District Railway (MDR) had, by 1876, constructed the majority of the Inner Circle (now the Circle Line), reaching Aldgate and Mansion House respectively. The companies were in dispute over the completion of the route as the MDR was struggling financially and the MR was concerned that completion would affect its revenues through increased competition from the MDR in the City area. City financiers keen to see the line completed, established the Metropolitan Inner Circle Completion Railway in 1874 to link Mansion House to Aldgate. Forced into action, the MR bought-out the company and it and the MDR began construction of the final section of the Inner Circle in 1879.

The station at Monument opened on October 6 1884. Initially the station was served by trains from both companies as part of circular Inner Circle service but various operational patterns have been used during the station's life. The Inner Circle service achieved a separate identity as the Circle Line in 1949 although its trains were still provided by the District or Metropolitan Lines.

Waterloo & City Railway, 1898

The Waterloo & City Railway was constructed by the London and South Western Railway (L&SWR) as a link between its terminus at Waterloo and the City. The station, with platforms under Queen Victoria Street and close to Mansion House, opened on August 8 1898. The station was originally called City.

The slopes to the platforms were later provided with one of the few sets of moving walkways on the whole underground system, unusually inclined at a slight angle. Advertising at the Waterloo & City station often takes the form of large painted murals on the walls and ceilings of the sloped exits, forming one of the largest advertisements on the underground.

City & South London Railway, 1900

The first station to be known as Bank opened on February 25 1900 when the City & South London Railway (C&SLR, now part of the Northern Line) opened its extension from Borough to Moorgate. The earlier terminus of the line, King William Street, on a different tunnel alignment was closed at the same time.

The intended location for a station building was the site of the 18th century church of St Mary Woolnoth on the corner of Lombard Street, which the C&SLR had obtained permission to demolish. Public protest made the company change its plans to building only a sub-surface ticket hall and lift entrance in the crypt of the church. This necessitated moving the bodies elsewhere, strengthening the crypt with a steel framework and underpinning the church's foundations. Unusually for stations subsequently converted to escalators, the original lift access from the ticket hall is still in use.

Central London Railway, 1900

The opening of the eastern terminus of the Central London Railway (CLR, now the Central Line) followed on July 30 1900.

As with the C&SLR, the high cost of property in the City, coupled with the presence of the Royal Exchange, the Bank of England, and Mansion House, meant that the station had to be built entirely underground. Permission was granted by the City of London Corporation for the station to be sited beneath the busy junction of roads meeting at this point provided public subways were provided to act as pedestrian road crossings. To avoid undermining the road above, the station's lifts were installed in separate lift shafts rather than paired two-per-shaft as usual.

To avoid compensating property owners for vibrations during construction and from operation, the alignments of the CLR's tunnels were arranged directly under London's streets. This meant that the platforms directly under Threadneedle Street and Poultry have an extreme curve to them, so that it is not possible to see one end of the platform from the other. Also east of Bank station, the Central Line tunnels have sharp curves because they had to avoid the vaults of the Bank of England itself.

The proximity of the CLR, W&CR and C&SLR stations, and the non-competing directions that their services travelled in, meant that it was only a short time before the ticket halls were connected. At deep level, connection between the CLR and C&SLR platforms had to wait until the introduction of escalators into the station in the 1920s.

Monument link, 1933

The southern end of the C&SLR (by then part of the "Edgware-Highgate Morden Line") platforms was close to those of Monument station, and in 1933, a escalator was built to provide the connection. At this point the names of the two stations became Bank for Monument and Monument for Bank.

Docklands Light Railway, 1991

The Docklands Light Railway built a tunnelled extension to arrive at platforms parallel to (but deeper than) the Northern Line platforms which opened in 1991. The DLR platforms also provided a corridor between them, and connected it to the Central line at one end, eventually reaching the platforms via the base of the disused lift shafts. Monument was connected at the other, to an extension to the westbound platform, meaning that there was no longer the requirement to pass down the busy Northern line platforms in order to change lines. In addition, a new link was provided to the Waterloo and City lines from the concourse to the Central Line and up to the Northern Line Ticket Hall. This junction is known to staff as the "Cruciform" as the junction of the converging corridors (one from the Northern Line Ticket Hall via the Escalators, one from the Waterloo and City Line Platforms, one from the DLR and Monument side of the complex and the final one coming from the rear of the Central line platforms) meet here.

During construction of these tunnels, workers uncovered part of one of the Greathead tunnelling shields used in the original construction of the Waterloo and City Line. This shield is located in the passageway linking the platforms of the Waterloo and City Line to those of the Central Line, and can still be seen by passengers as they walk through it.

Notable events

On January 11 1941, during The Blitz, 56 people were killed [http://www.cwgcuser.org.uk/personal/subterra/lu/tuawcafa.htm#Bank] and 69 people were injured when the Central Line ticket hall took a direct hit from a German bomb. The crater measuring 120ft long and 100ft wide had to be covered with a Bailey Bridge for the traffic to pass over. The station itself was closed for two months.

On September 7 2003, Bank station was used for a disaster training exercise, billed as "the most realistic live disaster exercise of its kind". The event, lasting several hours and involving about 500 police, fire, ambulance and London Underground personnel, was intended to prepare the emergency services for mass decontamination in the event of a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack.

The station today

From north to south along the length of King William Street, the present station layout is:

* Bank ticket hall and entrances.
* Central Line platforms, between St. Paul's and Liverpool Street, running perpendicular to the street.
* The northern terminus of the Waterloo & City Line, the only other station being the southern terminus at Waterloo station.
*Running parallel to the street and connecting the two ends of the station:
** Northern Line platforms, between London Bridge and Moorgate.
** The western terminus of the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), the next station being Shadwell.
* Circle and District Line platforms, between Cannon Street and Tower Hill, running perpendicular to the street.
* Monument ticket hall and entrances.

The station is named Bank on all but the Circle/District lines, where it is named Monument.

Bus connections

London Buses routes 8, 11, 21, 23, 25, 26, 40, 43, 76, 133, 141 242 and 388 and night bus routes N8, N11, N21, N26, N50, N76 and N133 serve the station.

Future developments

The original Central London Railway station had straight-to-platform lifts, but with the introduction of escalators cutting through the shafts, such access for the mobility impaired was lost. The only fully accessible part of the station for the mobility impaired is the DLR platforms, via lifts from the Street (again using part of St. Mary Woolnoth - the rectory).In addition to accessibility problems, Bank is one of the most congested stations at peak times on the whole of the Underground. In consequence, Transport for London have committed themselves to significantly transforming the station and removing some of the bottlenecks, and rendering the level of mobility impaired access much higher. As of March 31 2008 until August 2009, TfL have publicised that there will be no interchange between the Bank and Monument stations, to allow major escalator work between the two stations. However, in practice, it is still possible to interchange between all lines, and the only closed interchanges are between the DLR and the Central line, and the DLR and the Circle/District line platforms. There are alternative ways of getting to and from these lines, via other connecting passageways.

Notable Facts

* The Bank of England exit of the station is built into the Bank itself, and is the only grade I listed building on the Underground network.
* The complexity of the tunnel network for these stations has led to it gaining the unofficial name "The Warren" amongst staff.fact|date=June 2007
*Bank station is one of the most lucrative and sought after permits amongst charity collectors. One of the highest totals ever collected by a single person was £2032.36 by Mr David Wood, for Help the Aged on 26/06/08. [ [http://www.ragabonds.org.uk/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=2082 Ragabonds] , Collector totals database.]
* The Bank station was used in the 2005 film - Green Street
* The Monument station was used in the video for Piece by Piece by the band Feeder

Gallery

ee also

*List of London Underground stations

References

External links

* [http://homepage.ntlworld.com/clive.billson/tubemaps/ltbank.gifA diagram of the Bank/Monument station complex]
* [http://homepage.ntlworld.com/clive.billson/tubemaps/ltmonu.jpgAnother diagram (in colour)]
* [http://openguides.org/london/index.cgi?Bank_Station Bank Station] from the Open Guide to London
* [http://homepage.ntlworld.com/clive.billson/tubemaps/Bank%20Station%20After%20a%20Direct%20Hit.html History of Bank station, including a picture just after the 1941 bomb]
* [http://photos.ltmcollection.org London Transport Museum Photographic Archive]
** ltmcollection|rl/i00001rl.jpg|C&SLR Lombard Street entrance in front of St Mary Woolnoth, 1914
** ltmcollection|57/i0000d57.jpg|C&SLR King William Street entrance in front of St Mary Woolnoth, 1914
** ltmcollection|50/i0000d50.jpg|Entrances in front of Royal Exchange, 1914
** ltmcollection|5b/i0000d5b.jpg|Entrance in front of Royal Exchange, 1923
** ltmcollection|44/998744.jpg|Ticket hall showing steel support structure and tops of escalators, 1925
** ltmcollection|23/9863523.jpg|Ticket hall, 1933
** ltmcollection|wf/i00007wf.jpg|View of bomb crater, January 1941
* [http://tubephotos.dannycox.me.uk/bank.html More photographs of Bank station]

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