Newbury Park as would have been ....
From the LT collections I amassed when I was at LU - a sketch by John Harvey showing what the original plans for the New Works Programme 1935-40 reconstruction of Newbury Park station in east London could have looked like. Newbury Park had originally been constructed and opened in 1903 as part of the ambitious and not wholly successful loop line that linked the GER's main line at Ilford with the Epping/Ongar branch at Woodford. Suburban development was slow and several of the stations closed during WW1 as an economy measure such was the paucity of passengers. Then, in the 1930s, the newly formed London Transport under pressure to extend their tube services to north east London (and particularly the vociferous residents of North Ilford) developed a scheme to built a new tube tunnel under Eastern Ave, swing to the surface just to the south of Newbury Park and, along with the Epping/Ongar branch, link it to the Central line. In essence that is what happened although WW2 had a major impact on both timescales and infrastructure improvements. Essentially several major station reconstructions were canned, never to be resurrected (such as the proposed Holden style station at Theydon Bois) and indeed much forecast traffic, even on the loop, did not materialise thanks to the Green Belt legislation. Goodness, Fairlop, just up the line could have become one of London's major airports! Newbury Park was 'altered' for LT's use. The original 1903 style station building, same design as Chigwell, was demolished for road widening not railway works, and this futuristic bus station was indeed constructed to the designs of Oliver Hill in 1949. It won a Festival of Britain award in 1951, one of two LT sites to do so although the company now scandalously proposes to demolish the other winner, White City, that HE won't List even though this is. The rest of the station wasn't built but surface buildings adapted in a weak Festival of Britian/Austerity style and the original 1903 platforms now survive. So this post-Holden futuristic design never saw the light of Ilford.
Newbury Park as would have been ....
From the LT collections I amassed when I was at LU - a sketch by John Harvey showing what the original plans for the New Works Programme 1935-40 reconstruction of Newbury Park station in east London could have looked like. Newbury Park had originally been constructed and opened in 1903 as part of the ambitious and not wholly successful loop line that linked the GER's main line at Ilford with the Epping/Ongar branch at Woodford. Suburban development was slow and several of the stations closed during WW1 as an economy measure such was the paucity of passengers. Then, in the 1930s, the newly formed London Transport under pressure to extend their tube services to north east London (and particularly the vociferous residents of North Ilford) developed a scheme to built a new tube tunnel under Eastern Ave, swing to the surface just to the south of Newbury Park and, along with the Epping/Ongar branch, link it to the Central line. In essence that is what happened although WW2 had a major impact on both timescales and infrastructure improvements. Essentially several major station reconstructions were canned, never to be resurrected (such as the proposed Holden style station at Theydon Bois) and indeed much forecast traffic, even on the loop, did not materialise thanks to the Green Belt legislation. Goodness, Fairlop, just up the line could have become one of London's major airports! Newbury Park was 'altered' for LT's use. The original 1903 style station building, same design as Chigwell, was demolished for road widening not railway works, and this futuristic bus station was indeed constructed to the designs of Oliver Hill in 1949. It won a Festival of Britain award in 1951, one of two LT sites to do so although the company now scandalously proposes to demolish the other winner, White City, that HE won't List even though this is. The rest of the station wasn't built but surface buildings adapted in a weak Festival of Britian/Austerity style and the original 1903 platforms now survive. So this post-Holden futuristic design never saw the light of Ilford.