| Summary : The location of a former underground station, opened on 15th Decemeber 1906 by the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompron Railway. Situated between Knightsbridge and South Kensington, the station, despite being convenient for the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Brompton Oratory, was never well patronised and from October 1909 some trains started passing without stopping. As a consequence of the General Strike the station closed from 4th May to 4th October 1926. When it reopened it was only served by trains during weekdays, but Sunday services resumed on 2nd January 1927. However, by this time the fate of the station had more or less been sealed when the newly rebuilt Knightsbridge station was provided with an additional entrance nearby, Brompton Road finally closing on 30th July 1934. Following closure the Brompton Road portion of the street level building, which was originally L-shaped, was demolished to make way for a road widening scheme. This left only the side portion in Cottage Place which was not designed for passenger access. Just before the outbreak of the Second World War, the street level building, together with the liftshafts and certain passageways, were sold to the War Office and converted into the Royal Artillery's Anti-Aircraft Operations Room for central London. To provide the necessary office space, two of the four lift shafts were floored over at intervals of 15 feet, and a staircase inserted. At the bottom of these two office shafts, one was used as the operations room and the other was used for the ventilation apparatus. The eastbound platform was used as the teleprinter and communications station whilst the westbound one was used for staff accommodation and a rest area and a briefing cinema in which the screen still remains. The whole structure is fairly well-preserved, following abandonment in 1955, with London Underground owning the below-ground section and the Ministry of Defence owning the street-level building. |