Shoreditch was a

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 ...

station located in

Shoreditch Shoreditch is a district in the East End of London in England, and forms the southern part of the London Borough of Hackney. Neighbouring parts of Tower Hamlets are also perceived as part of the area. In the 16th century, Shoreditch was an imp ...

in the

London Borough of Tower Hamlets The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London boroughs, London borough covering much of the traditional East End of London, East End. It was formed in 1965 from the merger of the former Metropolitan boroughs of the County of London, metropol ...

in east London. Originally opened by the East London Railway in 1876, the station was permanently closed in 2006 being replaced directly to the west of the site by Shoreditch High Street station in 2010. The station was the northern terminus of the East London Line, with latterly a single platform alongside a single track that ran next to the disused Bishopsgate goods yard. Until the late 1960s the East London Line connected with the main line railway to Liverpool Street just north of Shoreditch station. The site of the link was visible from the end of the platform and still is visible from main line trains travelling between Stratford and Liverpool Street. The station was one of only a handful on the network with a single platform and a single-track layout, though it originally had two tracks and two platforms. The preceding station was

Whitechapel Whitechapel is a district in East London and the future administrative centre of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a part of the East End of London, east of Charing Cross. Part of the historic county of Middlesex, the area formed ...

, which after Shoreditch's closure was the northern terminus of the East London Line until the line closed for extension in 2007.

History

Shoreditch station opened in April 1876 as a stop on the East London Railway from Liverpool Street to points south. The passenger service between Shoreditch and Liverpool Street was withdrawn in 1885. Shoreditch joined the Underground network on 31 March 1913 as part of 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 ...

in conjunction with an electrification of the line. Goods services from Liverpool Street continued to pass through Shoreditch until April 1966; after then the track connection was severed in order to improve access to Liverpool Street for other trains. The station was closed from March 1995 to September 1998 during the renovation of the East London Line, reopening six months after the rest of the line. File:East london railway 1915.jpg, Shoreditch station on a 1915 map of the East London Line File:Shoreditch tube station train times.jpg, Sign showing train times from Shoreditch

Usage

Before its closure, Shoreditch was one of the least-used stations on the network, with only about 1,100 passengers per day. On weekdays it was open only at rush hour; it was closed on Saturdays, and open for only a few hours on Sundays for the nearby

Brick Lane Market Brick Lane Market is the collective name for a number of London markets centred on Brick Lane, in Tower Hamlets in east London. The original market was located at the northern end of Brick Lane and in the heart of east London's Bangladeshi c ...

. Prior to the 1990s the station was also closed on Sundays. *2006: 800,000 passenger entries and exits *2005: 748,000 *2004: 415,000 *2003: 380,000

Today

Shoreditch station closed permanently on 9 June 2006 to allow work to begin on the East London line extension. It has been replaced by a new station called

Shoreditch High Street Shoreditch High Street is the old main street of Shoreditch, London. It is part of the A10 road and connects Norton Folgate to the south with Kingsland Road to the north. It constitutes a segment of the Roman Ermine Street, which ran directl ...

. The new line and station form part of the

London Overground London Overground (also known simply as the Overground) is a suburban rail network serving London and its environs. Established in 2007 to take over Silverlink Metro routes, (via archive.org). it now serves a large part of Greater London as w ...

network, a suburban railway operated by Transport for London (TfL) but separate from the Underground network. Unlike other closed stations, TfL provided a temporary service to Shoreditch until the new line fully opened in 2010 in the form of a non-stop bus service connecting Shoreditch with Whitechapel using the station's previous limited opening hours. The cutting in and around the station area was filled in and partly reused for the line from Whitechapel (also in a cutting) to the replacement Shoreditch High Street station (on a viaduct). The station building still exists and was put up for sale by TfL in February 2010. In February 2011 the building was sold at auction for £665,000. Current plans call for the station building to be demolished and the bricks to be reused for a six-storey block of flats. In 2014 the building was used as a " pop-up" cinema: in summer the auditorium was furnished with six-person hot tubs from which to watch the films while in winter the concept was "bring your own pillow" to use on

bean bag A bean bag (also beanbag) is a sealed bag containing dried beans, PVC pellets, expanded polystyrene, or expanded polypropylene. The bags are commonly used for throwing games, but they have various other applications. Furniture Designed by Pi ...

style beds.

In popular culture

The station was used for a segment in the 1999 film '' Tube Tales''.

References

External links

London's Abandoned Tube Stations – Shoreditch

London Transport Museum Photographic Archive
** ** {{closed london underground stations Disused London Underground stations Disused railway stations in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Former buildings and structures in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Former East London Railway stations Former single platform tube stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1876 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 2006 Shoreditch 2006 in London