British Museum tube station

British Museum tube station was a station on the London Underground's Central Line, located on Bury Place, close to the British Museum in central London, England. It is now one of a number of closed London Underground stations.

It was opened on 30 July 1900 by the Central London Railway (CLR) with its entrance located near the junction of High Holborn and New Oxford Street.cite book |last=Rose |first=Douglas |title=The London Underground, A Diagrammatic History |year=1999 |publisher=Douglas Rose/Capital Transport |isbn=1-85414-219-4 ] In December 1906, Holborn station was opened by the Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway (GNP&BR, now the Piccadilly line) less than a hundred yards away. Despite being built and operated by separate companies, it was common for the underground railways to plan routes and locate stations so that interchanges could be formed between services. This had been done by other lines connecting with the CLR stations at Oxford Circus and Tottenham Court Road, but an interchange station was not initially constructed between the GNP&BR and the CLR because the tunnel alignment to British Museum station would not have been suitable for the GNP&BR's route to its Strand station (later called "Aldwych"). The junction between High Holborn and the newly constructed Kingsway was also a more prominent location for a station than that chosen by the CLR.

The possibility of an underground passageway was initially mooted, but the idea suffered from the complexity of tunneling between the stations, and the long walking distance it would involve (no-one considered moving walkways at the time). Holborn station was, in any case, better situated than British Museum, as it had better tram connections (Holborn had a stop on the now defunct Kingsway tramway subway). A proposal to enlarge the tunnels under High Holborn to create new platforms at Holborn station for the CLR and to abandon British Museum station was originally included in a private bill submitted to parliament by the CLR in November 1913LondonGazette
date=25 November 1913
issue=28776
startpage=8539
endpage=8541
accessdate=2007-09-18] , although the First World War prevented any works taking place. The works were eventually carried out as part of the modernisation of Holborn station at the beginning of the 1930s when escalators were installed in place of lifts. The station was duly closed on 24 September 1933, with the new platforms at Holborn opening the following day.

British Museum station was subsequently re-used up to the 1960s as a military administrative office and emergency command post, but it is now wholly disused. It can no longer be accessed from the surface and the surface building was demolished in 1989. The platforms have now been removed, thus lowering the entire tunnel floor to track level. This portion of the eastbound tunnel is now used by engineers to store sleepers and other parts of track, which can be seen from passing trains.

The station in popular culture

* The station was mentioned in the 1972 horror film "Death Line", but contrary to popular belief, it is not the station portrayed in the film as being the home of a community of cannibals descended from Victorian railway workers. The cannibals venture out at night to snatch travellers from the platforms of operating stations and take them back to their gruesome 'pantry' at an incomplete station. Donald Pleasence stars as the investigating police inspector, and when finally cornered, one of the cannibals screams a corrupted form of "Mind the doors!", obviously having picked it up parrot-fashion from the guards on the Underground trains. The station in question is named simply 'Museum' and is clearly stated as being 'between' Holborn and British Museum stations in a conversation between Pleasance's character and a colleague. It is supposedly part of a completely separate line that was not completed due to the construction company going bankrupt. Signs in the abandoned station also only state 'Museum' as the name.
* The station did feature in the Bulldog Drummond spin-off film "Bulldog Jack" (not a Sherlock Holmes film, as some sources claim), as the location reached by a secret tunnel leading from the inside of a sarcophagus in the British Museum. The villain (Ralph Richardson) was finally cornered and forced into a sword duel on the disused platforms, which were a studio set. The station was renamed 'Bloomsbury' in the film.
* The station briefly featured in the computer game "", in which Nico Collard escapes from the British Museum and finds the station. She then manages to stop the passing trains. The station in the game, however, is depicted as having its exit actually inside the British Museum itself. A station named Museum also features in the earlier game Beneath a Steel Sky, by the same company, but the apparent Australian setting for the latter game, as well as its proximity to a station named "St James" suggests this is actually Museum railway station, Sydney.

References

External links

* [http://www.abandonedstations.org.uk/British_Museum_station.html London's Abandoned Tube Stations - British Museum]
* [http://underground-history.co.uk/deeplevel.html Underground History: Deep Level Lines]
* [http://photos.ltmcollection.org London Transport Museum Photographic Archive]
** ltmcollection|ft/i00002ft.jpg|Station platform in 1900
** ltmcollection|01/i0000601.jpg|British Museum station, 1930
** ltmcollection|pk/i00001pk.jpg|Disused eastbound platform being bricked-up for use as air-raid shelter, 1941

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