Fulham Broadway tube station

Fulham Broadway is a London Underground station on the Wimbledon branch of the District Line. It is between West Brompton and Parsons Green stations and is in Travelcard Zone 2. The station is located on Fulham Broadway (A304). It is notable as the nearest station to Stamford Bridge stadium, the home of Chelsea Football Club. The London Oratory School is also nearby.

History

The station was opened as Walham Green on 1 March 1880 when the Metropolitan District Railway (MDR, now the District Line) extended its line south from West Brompton to Putney Bridge. Walham Green is the historic name of the area south of Fulham Broadway, north east of Eel Brook Common and north of Kings Road. The modern name of Walham Green is the Moore Park Estate.

The original station building was replaced in 1905 with a new entrance designed by Harry W Ford to accommodate crowds for the newly built Stamford Bridge stadium. It is now a Grade II listed building.

The name was changed to its current form on 2 March 1952 after representations from Fulham Chamber of Commerce.

In 2003 the street-level station building was closed and a new entrance was opened within the adjacent Fulham Broadway shopping centre. The shopping centre has the motto "Life Begins At Fulham Broadway". The centre was partly built above what were the previously open-air sections of the platforms and the station facilities were improved to provide full wheelchair accessibility and to again improve the management of football crowds. The old station building was refurbished and has been occupied since 2005 by a T.G.I. Friday's restaurant. It retains many of the original station signs and architectural features.

Cultural references

* In 1998 the station was featured in the film "Sliding Doors" where Gwyneth Paltrow met John Hannah after successfully catching her tube. When they leave the tube, you see them walk up the old steps towards the exit. These steps no longer lead to that exit, having been superseded by the new ticket hall described previously; they do remain as a bridge between platforms however.

* Ian Dury and the Blockhead's 1978 single "What a Waste" contains the line: "I could be the ticket man at Fulham Broadway Station".

Image gallery

External links

* [http://photos.ltmcollection.org London's Transport Museum Photographic Archive]
** ltmcollection|60/9889160.jpg|Walham Green station, 1893
** ltmcollection|23/993523.jpg|Walham Green station, 1920. The large crowd is composed of football fans attending the FA Cup Final held at Stamford Bridge that year.
** ltmcollection|94/9889594.jpg|Interior of station building, 1956
** ltmcollection|x1/i00000x1.jpg|View of platforms, 1980. Showing the open section of the platforms now covered by the shopping centre
** ltmcollection|9i/i000069i.jpg|Ticket office windows, 1998

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