Blake Hall is a disused former 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 counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The ...

in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

of Stanford Rivers, and south from the village of Bobbingworth in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

. It was latterly on the Central line, between North Weald and Ongar, but was originally served by the Epping to Ongar shuttle service branch line. It was opened in 1865 and named after Blake Hall, a country house located a mile or so to the northeast and inhabited by a family of substantial local land-owners. The station was closed in 1981.

History

Blake Hall railway station 1828549 ee6f929d

Blake Hall station was opened by the Great Eastern Railway on 24 April 1865, serving principally as a

goods yard A goods station (also known as a goods yard or goods depot) or freight station is, in the widest sense, a railway station where, either exclusively or predominantly, goods (or freight), such as merchandise, parcels, and manufactured items, are l ...

carrying agricultural produce from the nearby farms into London. Steam locomotives operated by British Railways for the Underground ran a shuttle service from Epping to Ongar, stopping at Blake Hall, from 1949 until 1957, when the line was electrified and taken over by the Underground's Central line. On 18 April 1966 the goods yard was closed and Blake Hall became a dedicated passenger station. On 17 October 1966, Sunday services were withdrawn. Blake Hall became reputed as the least-used station on the entire Underground network. Fare subsidies provided on the rest of the system were not provided on this part of the line because local government agencies for Essex and London failed to agree on their respective public transport responsibilities, and Blake Hall station was located a considerable distance from any substantial settlement. By the time the last train ran on 31 October 1981, the station was reported to have only 17 passengers per day. It was permanently closed on 2 November 1981. The Epping to Ongar branch line was closed 13 years later, on 30 September 1994. Blake Hall's station building has since been converted into a private home and the line passing the station site is now privately owned and operated as a heritage railway by the

Epping Ongar Railway The Epping Ongar Railway is a heritage railway in south-west Essex, England, run by a small number of paid staff and a team of volunteers. It was the final section of the Great Eastern Railway branch line, later the London Underground's Centr ...

. The platform was demolished after closure and reinstated in May 2012 but this is for aesthetic purposes only, and the station remains closed.

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * * * * * * * * *

External links

* * Epping Ongar Railway's Official Website {{Central line navbox Disused London Underground stations Disused railway stations in Essex Former Great Eastern Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1865 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1981 Epping Ongar Railway Former single platform tube stations

History

See also

References

External links