Hurrah, my local tube station is 100 years old today.
Croxley Green station opened to the public on Monday 2nd November 1925, linking my home village to the Metropolitan Railway and kickstarting substantial suburban development. Watford station also opened as the terminus of a short spur line and that's where TfL have chosen to celebrate the big birthday, complete with fully-booked tours and a museum display in the waiting room. My job today is thus to celebrate Croxley station instead, the rustic halt with the heritage lamps, which I was fortunate enough to have at the bottom of my road while I was growing up.
Royal assent for the new line was granted in 1912 but the First World War intervened and it took until 1923 for the go-ahead to be given. The branch line would bear off the existing railway near Croxley Hall Farm and run in a deep cutting through Croxleyhall Woods, with a separate curve dug to provide access from Rickmansworth as well as London. Carving through so much chalk proved difficult and expensive, with the £387,000 costs shared between the Metropolitan Railway and LNER who funded the line as a joint project. The railway despoiled the woods dividing them into several segments, but as a child I never minded because a woodland walk thus offered the opportunity to stand on the blue bridge overlooking the junction and watchtrains rattling round the curve, ideally more than once.
Even more woodland was almost lost in 2004 when evil infraco Metronet applied to insert a large track maintenance depot between the railway and the canal. The land had originally been gravel workings associated with the railway, hence TfL technically had rights over some of the land. Local residents formed a campaign group called Keep Croxley Green and adopted the unusual tactic of attempting to declare Long Valley Wood as a "village green" by dint of it being used for "lawful sports and pastimes, as of right, for not less than 20 years". The subsequent red tape disrupted timelines sufficiently for TfL to withdraw their plans and look elsewhere, and Herts County Council officially approved the application on 11th September 2007 which means they won't be coming back. The woods still look lovely, especially at the height of autumn.
Croxley station was built on a bend in Watford Road, then just a lane, close to the Red House pub at the bottom of New Road. Six cottages had to be demolished to make way, replaced just down the road and built of new-fangled concrete. The station instead got a cosy domestic vibe courtesy of Charles Clark, chief architect of the Metropolitan Railway, who delivered 25 stations in total including Farringdon, Northwood Hills and Kingsbury. Here he designed what could have been a large house - all the better to inspire later residential sales - with a symmetrical multi-gabled roof and four tall chimney stacks. The dormer windows mark an early example of over-station development. The small shop unit on the right no longer sells sweets and newspapers but is used as a cab office.
Stepping inside the building was always exciting because it usually meant a trip up to London. I remember a board to the left of the ticket office window with all the last train times attached as plastic numbers, all arriving long after I'd have gone to bed. The sale of tickets was restricted to a machine in 2007 and since then the office behind has been an over-sized hideaway out of which any members of staff rarely venture. At least the gateline was shut on my latest visit rather than gaping open, suggesting someone really was in there. On the opposite wall is the door to the ladies toilets and also access to the car park, of which more in a minute. What there isn't is a next train departure board, most likely because the signalling's so old hat out here that it couldn't display any useful London-bound information anyway.
The nicest stairs are those down to the 'just Watford' platform, these broad and still with an original handrail down the middle. TfL know it's not worth advertising here so all the poster frames are filled with artworks celebrating the 100th anniversary of the roundel in 2008. Even more neglected is the panel at the top of the stairs remembering 'Steam on the Met '98', its photos faded and mostly unstuck, thus tumbled down skew-whiff behind grubby glass. The other stairs are unpostered and narrower, this because one strip was sectioned off in the 1970s to create an access route from the car park. Those who park here have to troop all the way up to the ticket hall, pass through the gateline and then all the way back down to the platform barely two steps from where they started. TfL could easily add step-free access here simply by removing the screen, but the opposite platform's wedged against an embankment so would be much harder to facilitate.
Only the near end of each platform has a canopy and also a waiting room, one of these still with the remains of a fireplace in the corner. The London-bound hideaway is much better used than the tumbleweed Watford-bound alternative. Best of all there's a gents toilet on each platform, functional but not unpleasant, to balance out the single ladies toilet upstairs in the ticket hall. Croxley is the only station on the Metropolitan line to have two gents toilets, indeed the only other double-gents on the network are at Snaresbrook and Woodford. Supposedly the facilities here are only open 05:30-10:00 and 15:30-19:30 (weekdays only) due to anti-social behaviour and vandalism, though I visited out of hours and they were unlocked. As a reminder of a long-gone era when the Underground designed stations for passengers' benefit rather than budgetary bottom lines, they bring welcome relief.
The far end of each platform has possibly the station's finest feature, the line of heritage lampposts stretching off into the distance. They're illuminated by something a bit more energy-friendly these days but still splendid, especially since being given a fresh paint job earlier in the summer. Intermingled are the cameras and loudspeakers added in the 2000s, thankfully not as intrusively as at many other stations, perhaps because Metronet learned their lesson elsewhere. Autumn is not the season to judge the planters on the down platform so I won't. I will however note that a lot of flats could be built in the adjacent car park, which itself replaced a goods yard, should TfL ever fancy making money at the expense of the 95 commuters who'd be permanently kicked out.
The first train actually steamed into these platforms at 12.18pm on Saturday 31st October 1925, drawn by electric locomotive Sarah Siddons. Aboard the Rothschild Saloon were Lord Aberconway (Chairman of the Metropolitan) and Lord Faringdon (Deputy Chairman of LNER) who were here to perform the official opening. Passenger services began on 2nd November, the centenary we celebrate today, with Met trains to Baker Street interspersed with LNER services to Marylebone. The latter didn't survive past the General Strike in 1926, but you can still get up to town in under 45 minutes on the Met and many's the time I have. As for the name of the station it proved confusing having two Croxley Green stations in the same village so this one became plain Croxley in 1949, and has easily outlived the other.
All the fuss may be at Watford today but don't forget lovely old Croxley, because the entire line is now a centenarian, not just its stunted terminus.
