The Charing Cross/Strand/Embankment conundrum

This page was last modified on 8 June 2013

Take these five station-names:

These five station-names have all been used over the years, in various combinations, to describe four different Tube stations in the area of the north bank near Waterloo Bridge… however the various names have applied to different stations or not at all at different times! Below is the definitive version of what was named what, and when.

Confused? You will be…

Step by step…

The lines and stations are referred to using their current names in ordinary type; names used prior to the final renaming of each station are emphasised for clarity.

Many thanks to Geoff Marshall for his excellent tube-map illustrations created especially for this page.

Line by line…

Another way of viewing the conundrum is by examining a single line (or station) at a time:

The District Line station at Embankment went through the following changes:

The Bakerloo Line’s station at Embankment’s story was like this:

Trafalgar Square became “Charing Cross” in 1979, with the platform roundels also bearing the legend “for Trafalgar Square”.

Meanwhile, travellers below the forecourt of the mainline station (i.e. what became Charing Cross on the Northern Line) would have used:

Further comment

Photos

For pictures showing the exterior of the disused Aldwych station, please see the General LU Photos page.

A final twist

There’s a final twist to this. When through-running began on the Extended Jubilee Line on Saturday 20th November 1999, Charing Cross (Jubilee Line) station became disused. This means that the changes of the 1970s have effectively gone to waste: a person entering the system at Trafalgar Square’s entrances either catches the Bakerloo or walks all the way to the Northern station at Charing Cross forecourt, there being no operational Jubilee station between them.

So: will the Bakerloo Line station revert to “Trafalgar Square”? Well, apparently not, but time will tell…