The Middle Circle was a

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

service in London that operated from 1872 to 1905. The route was from the

District Railway The Metropolitan District Railway, also known as the District Railway, was a passenger railway that served London from 1868 to 1933. Established in 1864 to complete an " inner circle" of lines connecting railway termini in London, the first par ...

station at Mansion House to Earl's Court, then via the

West London Railway The West London Railway was conceived to link the London and Birmingham Railway and the Great Western Railway with the Kensington Basin of the Kensington Canal, enabling access to and from London docks for the carriage of goods. It opened in 184 ...

to Latimer Road on to the Hammersmith & City Railway and then via 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 ...

to 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 fr ...

. Although not a complete circuit, it was one of several 'circle' routes around London that opened at the same time, such as the 'inner circle' that is today's Circle line. Trains would run once every 30 minutes. In 1900 the service was cut back to run from Earl's Court to Aldgate, and ended in 1905.

History

Origins

The

(GWR) opened the Hammersmith & City Railway (H&CR) on 13 June 1864, and from 1 July 1864 carriages from Kensington (Addison Road) (now Kensington lympia were attached and detached from trains at Notting Hill; through services between Kensington and the

beginning in April 1865. A station had been built on the chord linking the H&CR and

, but this never opened due to GWR objections. Following an agreement between the

and GWR in August 1868, Uxbridge Road station, designed by the

London & North Western Railway The London and North Western Railway (LNWR, L&NWR) was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. In the late 19th century, the L&NWR was the largest joint stock company in the United Kingdom. In 1923, it became a constituent of the Lo ...

(L&NWR), opened on the West London Railway on 1 November 1869.

Middle Circle

The Middle Circle service started on 1 August 1872 when the GWR extended this service from Addison Road over the

to Earl's Court and onto Mansion House. The GWR provided most of the locomotives and carriages for the service. When the Metropolitan extended the north side of its railway eastward from Moorgate, the Middle Circle followed suit and Bishopsgate (now Liverpool Street) became the terminus on 12 July 1875 and then

Aldgate Aldgate () was a gate in the former defensive wall around the City of London. It gives its name to Aldgate High Street, the first stretch of the A11 road, which included the site of the former gate. The area of Aldgate, the most common use of ...

took the role from 4 December 1876. Trains ran once every 30 minutes. From 1 July 1900, the service was cut back to run from Earl's Court to Aldgate, and the Middle Circle service ended on 31 January 1905.

Metropolitan Railway

From 1 February 1905 the service was temporarily replaced by a shuttle from Addison Road to Hammersmith & City stations, until 5 November 1906, when four electric trains an hour began running from Addison Road to Aldgate, one continuing to Whitechapel. This service appears on the 1908 'London Underground' map as a Metropolitan Railway service. Passenger services on the West London Railway were ended on 19 October 1940 following bomb damage to the line, and the link between Latimer Road and the WLR closed. The curve was demolished in the 1960s to make way for the construction of the

West Cross Route The West Cross Route (WCR) is a 0.75 mile (1.2 km) segment of dual carriageway of the A3220 route in West London running north–south between the northern elevated roundabout junction with the western end of Westway ( A40) and the southern H ...

motorway. With the exception of the Uxbridge Road, today the stations are served by the

Circle A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. Equivalently, it is the curve traced out by a point that moves in a plane so that its distance from a given point is const ...

District A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...

and Hammersmith & City lines. Uxbridge Road station closed with the line in 1940 and opened on the same site in 2008.

List of stations

The following stations were served by the Middle Circle:

Notes and references

Notes

References

Sources

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External links

Clive's Underground Line Guides - Circle Line
{{Circle line navbox Closed London Underground lines Transport in the London Borough of Camden Transport in the London Borough of Hackney Transport in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Transport in the London Borough of Islington Transport in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Transport in the City of Westminster Transport in the City of London Transport in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Great Western Railway