Watford Vicarage Road was a proposed

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 ...

station in

Watford Watford () is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, 15 miles northwest of Central London, on the River Colne. Initially a small market town, the Grand Junction Canal encouraged the construction of paper-making mills, print works, a ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

. The station was proposed to be part of the suspended

Croxley Rail Link The Croxley Rail Link, or the Metropolitan Line Extension, is a proposed railway engineering project in the Watford and Three Rivers districts of Hertfordshire, England, that would have connected the London Overground and the London Undergroun ...

project, a scheme to extend the

Metropolitan line The Metropolitan line, colloquially known as the Met, is a London Underground line between in the City of London and and in Buckinghamshire, with branches to in Hertfordshire and in Hillingdon. Printed in magenta on the tube map, the line i ...

Watford Junction railway station Watford Junction is a railway station that serves Watford, Hertfordshire. The station is on the West Coast Main Line (WCML), 17 miles 34 chains from London Euston and the Abbey Line, a branch line to St Albans. Journeys to London take between 16 ...

, which would've been served by Metropolitan line trains between Watford Junction and Central London via . Originally the station was to be named either ''Watford Hospital'' or ''Watford General Hospital''. On 25 January 2017, the ''

Watford Observer The ''Watford Observer'' is a weekly local newspaper, published by Newsquest. It serves the town of Watford in southwest Hertfordshire, as well as the surrounding area. The paper covers local news, politics and sport, including the town's larges ...

'' newspaper published an update on the Croxley Rail Link confirming work had stopped as there was an ongoing funding issue.

Site

Watford Vicarage Road was to have been a newly constructed station on a re-opened section of the former

LNWR 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 Lond ...

Watford and Rickmansworth Railway The Watford and Rickmansworth Railway (W&RR) ran services between Watford and Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire, England. The company was incorporated in 1860; the line opened in 1862. The Rickmansworth branch was closed in 1952, and the remaining l ...

line which was closed by

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

in 1996. The station was to have been located to the west of Vicarage Road, adjacent to Holywell

allotment Allotment may refer to: * Allotment (Dawes Act), an area of land held by the US Government for the benefit of an individual Native American, under the Dawes Act of 1887 * Allotment (finance), a method by which a company allocates over-subscribed s ...

s, with the platforms in the

railway cutting Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in Track (rail transport), tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the ...

below the road. The single-storey glass and metal-clad station building was to be at street level, with staircases and lifts providing platform access. Designs for the new station, and others on the link, were prepared by Acanthus LW Architects. The new station was to have been between the sites of two former railway stations on the old LNWR line; to the west of the former and to the east of the former

Watford West railway station Watford West is a disused railway station in Watford, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom on the branch line from to , last operated in 1996. History The station opened in 1912 and was temporarily closed in 1996 before being permanently closed on 23 ...

on Tolpits Lane. It was not planned to re-open these disused stations and the platforms at both former stations would have been removed or modified to accommodate the two new tracks.

Name

The name originally proposed for the station was Watford Hospital, to reflect its proximity to Watford General Hospital. Local campaigners petitioned Transport for London (TfL) to name the station after Vicarage Road Stadium, home of

Watford F.C. Watford Football Club is an English professional football club based in Watford, Hertfordshire. They play in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football. The club’s original foundation is 1881, aligned with that of its antecede ...

, as they felt that it was a more easily recognised local landmark. TfL stated that their policy is not to name new stations after individual roads in order to ensure geographical understanding across the whole Tube network. However, in recognition of local opinion and the wider recognition of the Vicarage Road name in association with the football club, they agreed to waive this rule. On 8 August 2013 TfL announced that they would name the station ''Watford Vicarage Road''.

References

External links

*
Croxley Rail Link project website
{{Watford Proposed London Underground stations Proposed railway stations in England Croxley Rail Link