The Ludgate Hill Station of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway . [Click on image to enlarge it.] Source: the 1865 Illustrated London News, which comments:
The new station of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway, and of the Metropolitan Extension Railway, near the bottom of Ludgate-hill, was opened for traffic on Thursday, the 1st inst., but is yet in a very unfinished state. A View of the principal front, in New Bridge-street, Blackfriars, is given on this pace. The architecture of the facade has no great pretensions to dignity of style, but it presents rather a lively appearance, with its turrets at each corner and its decorations of parti-coloured brickwork above the arched doorways. The interior is convenient enough for the accommodation of the large passenger traffic, which may be expected to increase considerably upon the completion of the High-Level Crystal Palace Railway and Upper Norwood station, to be opened next month, in connection with the Metropolitan Extension line of this company at Camberwell. The booking-offices at the Ludgate-hill station are situated within a circular inclosure which stands in the middle of the spacious hall on the ground door, one side being allotted to the Metropolitan Extension Railway (Brixton, Clapham, Battersea, and Pimlico), while the other is devoted to the business of the main line, as well as of the Margate and Ramsgate portion, and through Continental traffic. The passengers, on alighting from the trains, may either descend the stairs to the doors opening into New Bridge-street, or, by another staircase, may emerge into a narrow lane which offers, at present, the readiest access to Ludgate-hill. When the houses yet remaining at the corner of Ludgate-hill shall be removed a more suitable approach may he provided on that side, but it is likely that many of the passengers for the City will not alight at Ludgate-hill, but will go on by the line now under construction which is to join the London, Chatham, and Dover with the Metropolitan Railway at Smith-field, thence passing on to Aldersgate and Liverpool-street. Most of the heavy goods traffic of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway stops at their more capacious establishment on the Surrey side of Blackfriars Bridge, where there is a vast amount of room for storage, in the vicinity of the warehouses and factories of the borough of Southwark. Tne Ludgate-hill station is for passenger traffic.
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Bibliography
The Illustrated London News (10 June 1865): 557.
Last modified 27 November 2015