Burdett Road is a disused railway station located in

Bow Common Bow Common was an area of common land, that lay on Bow Common Lane in what is now the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Despite the name, the common lay just inside Mile End's parish boundary with Bromley by Bow, and not in the parish of Bow ...

, east London. It was opened in 1871 by the

Great Eastern Railway The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern R ...

and closed in 1941.

Opening

The station was located on Burdett Road in

, in the

East End of London The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...

, and was opened on 11 September 1871 by the

who had leased the

London and Blackwall Extension Railway Originally called the Commercial Railway, the London and Blackwall Railway (L&BR) in east London, England, ran from Minories to Blackwall via Stepney, with a branch line to the Isle of Dogs, connecting central London to many of London's docks. ...

(LBER) from 1866. The line at this point was on a viaduct and with little available space at street-level the entrance to the station was incorporated within the structure of the viaduct. The buildings on the two platforms were largely of wood construction and the platforms both had lengthy awnings affording shelter from the elements.

The line through the station

Burdett Road was located on the

(LBER) which was opened on 2 April 1849 and was an extension of the original London and Blackwall Railway from

Stepney Stepney is a district in the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The district is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name appl ...

to Bow & Bromley. It was down line from . The LBER had wished to extend its trains towards Stratford, but relations with the Eastern Counties Railway were poor and they would not allow a physical junction to be constructed. An exchange platform was provided at a station called Victoria Park and Bow but few ECR trains called there. The service was withdrawn on 2 May 1850 although a few months later on 26 September the initial section of the East and West India Docks and Birmingham Junction Railway (which changed its name to the North London Railway on 1 January 1853) connected to the LBER at Gas Factory Junction. The relationship between the ECR and LBER finally improved and in 1854 the junction between the two lines was built and the two companies operated services over the Bow line. In 1858 the

London Tilbury and Southend Railway The London, Tilbury and Southend Railway (LT&SR), was a British railway company, whose network connected Fenchurch Street station, in central London, with destinations in east London and Essex, including , , , Tilbury, Southend and . The company ...

opened its Barking extension joining the LBER at Gas Factory Junction. By the 1860s the railways in East Anglia were in financial trouble, and most were leased to the ECR; they wished to amalgamate formally, but could not obtain government agreement for this until 1862, when the

(GER) was formed by amalgamation. The LTSR and NLR remained outside the Great Eastern as independent rail companies.

Services

Trains serving Burdett Road ran every 15 minutes to, what was advertised on the GER handbills, as Bow New station which was in reality the NLR Bow station. This service was originally run by the NLR but had been taken over by the GER in 1869. In 1876 the GER re-built and opened the first station at

Bow Road Bow Road is a thoroughfare in Bow, London, England. The road forms part of the A11, running from Aldgate to Norwich in Norfolk. To the west the road becomes Mile End Road, and to the east is Bow Interchange on the A12. The College of Tec ...

and started operating trains on that route. Both services continued operation until 1892 when Bromley and Bow station was closed and replaced by the second Bow Road station a short distance to the north which offered a footway link to the NLR station. The GER service from the NLR station to Fenchurch Street was then withdrawn. From 1 November 1891 LTSR trains started calling at Burdett Road. The July 1922 Bradshaw's Railway Guide showed services from the Great Eastern Railway to Ilford via Stratford, and to North Woolwich and Custom House via Bow Road and Stratford Market, on Tables 318 and 320. LTSR services to various destinations including Tilbury, Southend and Shoeburyness could be found on Table 650.

Commercial arrangements

The actual relationships between the various companies with regard to Burdett Road were quite complex. Between 1866 and 1922, Burdett Road was simultaneously owned by the London and Blackwall, leased to the Great Eastern, and had services operated by both the GER and LTSR. It was not a joint line or station, nor were they joint services, because east of Gas Factory Junction the routes and destinations were different. The GER's lease of the line meant that they managed the line and station, and were responsible for all expenses, but still had to hand over a proportion of the receipts to the LTSR (for journeys to its destinations) and to the London and Blackwall, which paid a dividend to its shareholders.

Closure

The London and North Eastern Railway took over operation of the station in 1923 following the grouping which was also when the LBER ceased to legally exist. The nearby Mile End station on the

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent ceremonial counties of England, counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and He ...

, which opened in 1902, proved more popular than Burdett Road. With the demands placed on the railway system by the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and bomb damage in December 1940 saw the station closed for a week for emergency repairs. Further damage saw the station closed on 21 April 1941. The surrounding area was heavily redeveloped after the war to make way for

Mile End Park Mile End Park is a park located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a linear park of some , and was created on industrial land devastated by World War II bombing. Some of the park is within Limehouse and Globe Town/Bethnal Green, wit ...

, and today little trace remains of Burdett Road station; the westbound platform space survives but is derelict. The LBER line is still open (as of 2014), forming part of the busy main line from Fenchurch Street to Shoeburyness. After closure the entrance to the station was used as a woodworking factory with wood stored on the old stairwells. The station entrance disappeared in 1984 as part of a road widening scheme. T

Locomotive named after station

The LTSR introduced a class of 4-4-2T locomotive in 1880 known as the Tilbury Tanks and number 18 (built 1881) of this class was named ‘Burdett Road’ .

References

Notes

{{Disused railway stations of London Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1871 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1941 Former Great Eastern Railway stations Disused railway stations in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Bow Common