Lothbury was an authorised underground railway station planned by the

Great Northern & City Railway The Northern City Line is a commuter railway line in England, which runs from Moorgate station to Finsbury Park in London with services running beyond. It is part of the Great Northern Route services, and operates as the south-eastern branch ...

(GN&CR) but never built. It was to be located in Lothbury, in the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

, the historic nucleus and financial centre of London. In November 1901, the GN&CR published a notice of its intention to present a

private bill Proposed bills are often categorized into public bills and private bills. A public bill is a proposed law which would apply to everyone within its jurisdiction. This is unlike a private bill which is a proposal for a law affecting only a single ...

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. ...

seeking permission for an extension of the company's tunnels then under construction between

Finsbury Park Finsbury Park is a public park in the London neighbourhood of Harringay. It is in the area formerly covered by the historic parish of Hornsey, succeeded by the Municipal Borough of Hornsey. It was one of the first of the great London park ...

and

Moorgate Street Moorgate was one of the City of London's northern gates in its defensive wall, the last to be built. The gate took its name from the Moorfields, an area of marshy land that lay immediately north of the wall. The gate was demolished in 1762, bu ...

. The bill proposed a short, , southward continuation of the line to Lothbury, which would become the southern terminus in place of Moorgate Street (now known simply as Moorgate) as originally planned. The bill received

Royal Assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in othe ...

on 8 August 1902 as the Great Northern and City Railway Act of 1902. The station was to have been built entirely below ground, with access to the street by

lift Lift or LIFT may refer to: Physical devices * Elevator, or lift, a device used for raising and lowering people or goods ** Paternoster lift, a type of lift using a continuous chain of cars which do not stop ** Patient lift, or Hoyer lift, mobile ...

and subways to the corners of the junction where Lothbury,

Gresham Street Gresham Street in the City of London is named after the English merchant and financier Thomas Gresham. It runs from the junction of Lothbury and Moorgate at its eastern end, to St. Martin's Le Grand in the west. Gresham Street was created in ...

and Princes Street converge. The station was to have had five lifts, and a "moving staircase" was also proposed. One peculiarity of the scheme was that the running tunnels between Moorgate Street and Lothbury stations were to have been shorter than the platform tunnels at the two stations; meaning that the front of a full-length train would have arrived at Lothbury before the rear would have left Moorgate Street. The line could not be extended any further south due to the proximity of the

City & South London Railway The City and South London Railway (C&SLR) was the first successful deep-level underground "tube" railway in the world, and the first major railway to use electric traction. The railway was originally intended for cable-hauled trains, but owing ...

's tunnels under Princes Street. Work began on the Moorgate Street to Lothbury section but was abandoned almost immediately, with the

tunnelling shield A tunnelling shield is a protective structure used during the excavation of large, man-made tunnels. When excavating through ground that is soft, liquid, or otherwise unstable, there is a potential health and safety hazard to workers and the proj ...

left in place at the end of the southbound tunnel just south of Moorgate Street. The Great Northern and City Railway Act of 1907, which received

on 26 July 1907, granted additional time for the construction of the Lothbury extension but the money could not be raised and no further work was done. In 1913, the

Metropolitan Railway The Metropolitan Railway (also known as the Met) was a passenger and goods railway that served London from 1863 to 1933, its main line heading north-west from the capital's financial heart in the City to what were to become the Middlesex su ...

(MR) purchased the GN&CR and revived the Lothbury proposal in a modified form as part of a number of plans to connect the GN&CR to the

Waterloo & City Railway The Waterloo & City line, colloquially known as The Drain, is a London Underground shuttle line that runs between Waterloo and Bank with no intermediate stops. Its primary traffic consists of commuters from south-west London, Surrey and Hampsh ...

(W&CR) and the MR itself. When the Metropolitan Railway Act of 1913 was passed on 15 August 1913, neither of the proposals for connections were permitted, but Lothbury station was approved, again as the terminus station. In 1914, the Metropolitan Railway introduced revised proposals for its connections between the GN&CR, the Metropolitan and the Westminster and City, which removed the need for the station at Lothbury. Although these connections were never realised, the concept of a Lothbury station was not revived again.

Notes

References

* {{Closed london underground stations Unbuilt London Underground stations Proposed London Underground stations Tube stations in the City of London Railway stations located underground in the United Kingdom