Watford tube station was 100 years old yesterday. There were celebrations.
Not Watford Junction which opened in 1837 (and on its current site in 1858). Not Watford High Street on the Overground which opened in 1862. Not Watford North on the St Albans line which opened in 1910. Not Watford West or Watford Stadium Halt on the Croxley Green branch which last saw a train in 1996. Not Watford Vicarage Road station which was never built. I refer instead to Watford tube station which opened on Monday 2nd November 1925, and is just one of the many stations in the Watford area that never met its full potential.
The Metropolitan Railway's branch line proved expensive to build, not least because of the unavoidable contours hereabouts. A lofty crossing of the Gade valley was required, this despite Croxley station half a mile away being in a cutting. The viaduct runs first above the Grand Union Canal - this span since replaced in metal - and then on brick arches to the River Gade. From a train window there's briefly a great view across the canal basin at Two Bridges before the tracks land on a sturdy embankment, which gradually reduces in height until the platforms at Watford end below street level. This is not how the tube extension was supposed to terminate.
Watfordstation is another from the architectural playbook of Charles Clark, and like Croxley has an Arts and Crafts-influenced vernacular. The roof is tall, broad and tiled, with three gabled dormers and thin brick chimneystacks rising all around. A bold blue canopy protrudes in front of the main entrance to announce the station's name, again just as at Croxley. This time there are two retail units, both tiny, the cafe on the right still with an original shopfront. The shop on the left is externally shabbier, and may still be called News Box but newspapers haven't been part of its main offering for a while. And behind that is a teensy office for A1 Taxis, ideally located because the vast majority of the population of Watford live nowhere near the station so an additional ride is very welcome.
The main problem for railway companies attempting to pass through Watford had been the Earls of Essex whose estate at Cassiobury House covered most of the land northwest of the town. A century earlier they'd complained about the "iron horse" invading their property and forced the London and Birmingham Railway to bend to the east to avoid the estate. Now they were refusing direct access to the Metropolitan Railway in its attempts to reach Watford town centre, a situation which eased slightly in 1909 when the 7th Earl sold off some of his land for housing and a wedge of parkland. But the new line could go no further than a dell round the back of Watford Boys Grammar School, prohibited from continuing on a viaduct across the delights of Cassiobury Park. Generations of schoolboys have benefited from that decision, but objectively things would've been much better if the Met had ever reached the High Street.
Passengers who did make it to the outcast station on Cassiobury Park Avenue found themselves entering a spacious ticket hall, noticeably taller and wider than at Croxley. It was once worthy of two ticket windows, now there are two ticket machines and a cosy back office. It once had a telephone kiosk in a recess, now it has a cash dispenser. It still has a hardwood door to the ladies toilets, these apparently retaining the original cubicles and wood-block floor although obviously I haven't confirmed that. In a bold move the paddles on the gateline are currently sponsored by Harrow College ('only a 19 minute tube ride away'). The door to Station Approach is now firmly locked but the passageway does have an Oyster pad should it ever need to be opened.
The finest feature at Watford station may well be the mauve and sea-green tiling. These were the Metropolitan Railway's corporate colours at the time and they radiate around the ticket hall but more particularly down the stairs. A gorgeous gridded design flanks you on the descent, the tones luxuriously muted with craftsmanship worthy of a stately mansion's wet room. There are a lot of steps, and from what I saw yesterday these are still proving tough for those with walking sticks or pushchairs. Watford isn't even on the long-list for step-free access, it being expensive to force a lift into a split-level Grade II listed building, although I think I can see where you might otherwise shoehorn a shaft.
Watford has a broad islandplatform, generally with only one occupied so it's easy to deduce which side the next train will be leaving. A large W-shaped canopy helps keep the doors to three carriages dry, and could potentially shield four were the buffers not quite so far away from the station building. All the supports are attractively painted in what's now Metropolitan purple. There's no real need to use the far end of the platform, that is unless you've arrived on an incoming train and been careless enough to sit at the rear. The waiting room is similarly superfluous, it generally being much easier to wait on a train, but is delightfully basic with a herringbone floor and two long built-in benches. The gents is just round the back, and this time I can confirm a level of historic originality.
Yesterday's celebrations focused on the waiting room where folk from Watford Museum had set up a small display, mainly because there wasn't room for a big one. They focused on the arrival of Metro-land in the town illustrated with several evocative photographs, then squeezed in a table at the rear where younger visitors could be crafty with relevant postcards. Upstairs the London Transport Museum had pasted several of their archive images down a side corridor like a little gallery, one of which made me go "Oh I remember that sign" and another "oh I've got that timetable". But the main centenary action was a free guided tour led by one of the team's more colourful characters, leading folk round the open parts of a station in a way I entirely predicted back in 2011.
Had all gone to plan Watford station would have closed to passenger traffic a few years ago when the Metropolitanlineextension to Watford Junction opened. But Boris's boondoggle project floundered after he left the Mayoralty, and all that remains today is an landmark block of flats beside an unbuilt tube station at Cassiobridge and an empty corridor across Watford's new Health Campus. The first attempt to extend the line came in 1927 when the Metropolitan Railway purchased the The Empress Winter Gardens and Tea Lounge on Watford High Street with the intention of creating a better-frequented terminus. But tunnelling under Cassiobury Park or the WBGS playing fields proved entirely impractical, plans stalled and a shuttle bus connecting the station to the shops had to suffice instead.
The site of what might have been Watford Central station is now a Wetherspoons where you can buy a pint of Ruddles for less than a single fare to Croxley, and all dreams of extending the line are now practically dead. It's a shame because it took me 20 minutes to walk from where the terminus should have been to where it actually is, but also a joy because it means a brilliant station building has just celebrated its centenary. Happy 100th birthday to Watford and Croxley, on the branch line that was never as useful as originally intended but totally changed my life.
