Chesham Underground Station including water tower to south and signal box to south-east

Chesham Underground Station including water tower to south and signal box to south-east, STATION ROAD

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Underground railway station, opened 1889. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1401704
Date first listed:: 20-Jul-2011
List Entry Name:: Chesham Underground Station including water tower to south and signal box to south-east
Statutory Address:: Chesham Underground Station including water tower to south and signal box to south-east, STATION ROAD

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1401704
Date first listed:: 20-Jul-2011
List Entry Name:: Chesham Underground Station including water tower to south and signal box to south-east
Statutory Address 1:: Chesham Underground Station including water tower to south and signal box to south-east, STATION ROAD

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: Chesham Underground Station including water tower to south and signal box to south-east, STATION ROAD

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Buckinghamshire (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Chesham
National Grid Reference:: SP9607101616, SP9608501611

Summary

Underground railway station, opened 1889.

Reasons for Designation

Chesham Station, built for the Metropolitan Railway in 1889, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Architectural interest: the most complete surviving example of a late-C19 rural Metropolitan station; * Historic interest: a vivid reminder of the Metropolitan Railway's early expansion into London's rural hinterland. * Ensemble value: the station building, signal box and water tower form an unusually coherent and intact group.

History

The Metropolitan Railway was the world's first underground line, opened in 1863 to ease surface traffic congestion and provide a passenger link between London's main northern railway termini at Paddington, Euston and Kings Cross. From the late 1860s the Metropolitan began to expand gradually through the northern suburbs and into the countryside beyond, where the company reaped large profits from the development of commuter housing. Harrow was reached in 1880 and Rickmansworth in 1885, with the extension to Chesham opening in July 1889; in 1892, however, the line was further extended from Chalfont to Amersham and Aylesbury, leaving the four-mile Chesham section as a shuttle-operated branch line which still operates, although a direct service to Central London is now planned. The booking hall interior was partly remodelled in the 1980s with the introduction of the Underground Ticketing System, but otherwise the buildings have seen little alteration. Measured from Charing Cross, Chesham is the most distant from central London of all the stations on the Underground network.

Details

Underground railway station, opened 1889.

MATERIALS: Entrance building of stock brick with Welsh slate roof; platform canopy with cast-iron columns and timber valancing.

PLAN: L-shaped entrance building with booking hall in short return section to north and offices, waiting room and toilets in longer arm to south. Single canopied platform.

EXTERIOR: Entrance building's short façade to station forecourt has two cross-casement windows with moulded stone heads and cills, flanking central doorway set beneath an off-centre canopy supported on two timber posts with curved braces (the middle post has been removed). Low hipped roof with two brick stacks. Single platform with four-bay canopy, the latter comprising a ridge-and-furrow roof supported on cast-iron columns and decorative openwork spandrel-brackets.

INTERIORS: Booking hall has original fireplace, cornice and matchboard panelling, vertical to dado height and horizontal above. Waiting room has modern tiles below dado but original boarding and cornice above. Original boarded partitions in gents' toilets.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: Square brick water tower to south, treated as a Classical composition with keystone relieving arches and dentil course, surmounted by a large iron tank. Timber signal box on brick base opposite platform, with curved eaves brackets and hipped slate roof.

Sources

Books and journals
Horne, M, The Metropolitan Line, (2003)

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.