Aldgate tube station

Aldgate
Station entrance
Aldgate Location of Aldgate in Central London
Location	Aldgate
Local authority	City of London
Managed by	London Underground
Number of platforms	4
Fare zone	1
OSI	Fenchurch Street Tower Gateway DLR [1]
London Underground annual entry and exit
2012	6.65 million[2]
2013	6.88 million[2]
2014	7.22 million[2]
2015	7.53 million[2]
Key dates
18 November 1876 (18 November 1876)	Opened
Other information
Lists of stations	DLR Underground National Rail Tramlink
WGS84	51°30′50″N 0°04′34″W / 51.514°N 0.076°W / 51.514; -0.076Coordinates: 51°30′50″N 0°04′34″W / 51.514°N 0.076°W / 51.514; -0.076
London Transport portal

Aldgate is a London Underground station which serves the Aldgate area on the eastern edge of the City of London. It is situated within the City ward of Portsoken, which neighbours the Aldgate ward. The station is on the Circle line between Tower Hill and Liverpool Street, and it is the eastern terminus of the Metropolitan line. It is in Travelcard Zone 1.^[3]

Aldgate was opened in 1876 with its entrance on Aldgate High Street. A station named Aldgate East opened nearby eight years later^[4] and is served today by the District and Hammersmith & City lines.^[3]

History

The route first proposed ran south from Moorgate to Cannon Street, but this was soon amended to the present alignment to allow connection with three additional termini: Liverpool Street, Broad Street, and Fenchurch Street.^[5] However, this change also forced an awkward doubling-back at Aldgate, reducing the desirability of the line for local traffic and greatly increasing the cost of construction due to high prices in the City of London.^[5] Construction was also complicated because the station was on the site of a plague pit which contains an estimated 1,000 bodies.

Aldgate station was opened on 18 November 1876, with a southbound extension to Tower Hill opening on 25 September 1882, completing the Circle (line).^[5] Services from Aldgate originally ran further west than they do now, reaching as far as Richmond, and trains also used to run from Aldgate to Hammersmith (the Hammersmith & City line now bypasses Aldgate). It became the terminus of the Metropolitan line in 1941. Before that, Metropolitan trains had continued on to the southern termini of the East London Line.

In 2005, one of four suicide bombers involved in the 7 July terrorist attacks detonated a device on a C-stock Circle line train from Liverpool Street and was approaching Aldgate.^[6] Seven passengers were killed in the bombing.^[6] Of the stations affected by the bombings, Aldgate was the first to be reopened, once police had handed back control of the site to London Underground following an extensive search for evidence. Once the damaged tunnel was repaired by Metronet engineers, the lines were reopened. This also allowed the Metropolitan line to be fully restored, since the closure had meant all trains had to be terminated two stations early, at Moorgate.^[7]

Services

On the Circle line the typical off-peak service measured in trains per hour (tph) is:

• 6 tph clockwise to Edgware Road via Embankment;^[5][8]
• 6 tph anti-clockwise to Hammersmith via King's Cross St. Pancras.^[5][9]

On the Metropolitan line the typical off-peak service in trains per hour is:

• 2 tph northbound to Amersham;^[7][10]
• 2 tph northbound to Chesham;^[7][10]
• 8 tph northbound to Uxbridge.^[7][10]

During peak hours there are also additional fast and semi-fast Metropolitan line services, with some following the route to and from Watford.^[7]

Connections

London Buses routes 25, 40, 42, 67, 78, 100, 115, 135, 205 and 254, and night routes N205, N253, N550 and N551 serve the station.^[11] Additionally, bus route 25 has a 24-hour bus service.^[11]

Literature

Aldgate station plays a role in the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans (published in the anthology His Last Bow).

In the story, the body of a junior clerk named Cadogan West is found on the tracks outside Aldgate, with a number of stolen plans for the Bruce-Partington submarine in his pocket. It seems clear enough that "the man, dead or alive, either fell or was precipitated from a train." But why, wonders Holmes, did the dead man not have a ticket? It turns out that the body was placed on top of a train carriage before it reached Aldgate, via a window in a house on a cutting overlooking the Metropolitan line. Holmes realises that the body fell off the carriage roof only when the train was jolted by the dense concentration of points at Aldgate.

Aldgate is also mentioned in John Creasy's 1955 detective novel Gideon's Day.

References

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Aldgate tube station.

• Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-8526-0508-1. OCLC 60251199. 
• Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 0-9068-9999-0. OCLC 228266687. 

Preceding station		London Underground		Following station
Liverpool Street towards Hammersmith (via King's Cross St. Pancras)		Circle line		Tower Hill towards Edgware Road (via Victoria)
Liverpool Street towards Amersham, Chesham, Uxbridge or Watford		Metropolitan line		Terminus