A UFO in the Suburbs: Southgate Underground Station

Southgate station at night

The extension of the Piccadilly Line eastwards from Finsbury Park into what was then Middlesex took place between April 1931 when the first plans were submitted and the opening of Cockfosters station in July 1933. Eight stations, as well as signal boxes, electricity substations and a new depot were designed by consultant architect Charles Holden and the design team of London Transport, headed by Stanley Heaps. The first section was completed on 19th September 1932 with Manor House, Turnpike Lane, Wood Green, Bounds Green and Arnos Grove opening for service. Six months later on 13th March 1933, two more stations opened, Southgate and Oakwood. The latter station was designed by C.H. James in a Sudbury-box style, with brick walls and a concrete roof. But it was the design of Southgate that caught the attention of both the architectural press and the public at large.

A London Transport poster advertising the building of the Piccadilly Line extension to Southgate. Image from London Transport Museum.

The first design for Southgate had a lozenge-like shape with three floors, the ground level for the ticket hall and shops, then two rows of flats above. This design was later reworked into the station we know today. The ticket hall building is circular in form, like a UFO set down in the growing suburbs. Holden had dabbled with the circle in his stations design before, with the previous station on the line Arnos Grove, and Chiswick Park on the western extension. But both of those buildings had sat on a square brick base. Here the curve is unadulterated, with the experiment in form having a practical dimension, in trying to improve the flow of passengers to and from the platforms to street level. The roof is built in thin concrete, a design aided by assistant Israel Schultz, and undulates like the roof of a tent. On top of the roof is a lighting element made up of concrete blocks, bronze, glass and a copper ball. 

Southgate's ticket hall with the passimeter at the centre. Image from London Transport Museum.

The supporting walls are built in the same multi-coloured Buckinghamshire brick used throughout the eastern extension stations, with bronze shop fronts for the various kiosks around the outside of the station. Inside, the roof is supported by a single concrete column, with the ticket passimeter around it.  The interior is lit by a thin, continuous window which goes around the top of the ticket hall, as well as hidden lighting. Escalators and stairs lead down to the platform area, with bronze uplighters providing illumination along the way. The concourse and platform areas featured cream and yellow tilework, and the tall light fittings also featured at the other extension stations. 

The bus and shopping parade around Southgate station. Image from RIBApix.

The 1930s stations designed by Holden, and overseen by London Transport general manager Frank Pick, were not just envisioned at tube stops, but as transport hubs connecting to other LT services like tram and bus, as well as including shops and other services. This idea can be seen at Southgate in the curving bus and shop parade opposite the ticket hall. The arrangement of the parade, with buses coming off the main road to stops behind the station, would allow passengers to quickly and easily connect to services to get them to and from the underground. The two-storey parade building is built with the same Bucks brick structure as the station, with the curved glazed ends showcasing the North European modernism seen by Holden and Pick on their 1930 tour to the continent. The area around the ticket hall also features the wonderful mast-like structures which were designed to combine lighting, seating and timetables.

Southgate station with the bus parade still under construction. Image from Enfield Dispatch.

Southgate and the other Piccadilly extension stations were the highpoint of Holden’s time designing for the underground. Although he would design a number of other stations after the completion of the extension in 1933, his design never quite reached the heights shown here. The Piccadilly Line stations were well received, and seen as the first set of modernist public buildings in the country. Pick linked the work of designing and building new stations as akin to that carried out by he great cathedral builders, with armies of people employed in creating these masterpieces, something he termed “medieval modernism”. 

​The stations on the extension were given statutory listing in February 1971 as part of the first batch of modernist buildings to be protected, but by the 1990s had fallen into disrepair. A refurbishment programme was undertaken with original elements either restored or replaced with replicas, although today the stations could do with a bit more TLC. Southgate and the other stations on the eastern extension still operate today as a testament to the vision of both Charles Holden and Frank Pick, and their quest to bring modernity to the suburbs. 

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Southgate and all the other in the Piccadilly Line extension are featured in our London Tube Stations 1924-61 book, examining the modernist era of station design led by Charles Holden. Get your copy HERE