Summary : Underground railway station, opened on 19th September 1932 on the Piccadilly line extension form Wood Green to Bounds Green. Charles Holden had worked with Charles James when they designed the Empire Marketing Board stand for an exhibition at Olympia in 1931, and he asked James to carry out the design of this station. An Adams, Holden and Pearson drawing from January 1931 shows a double height building with ticket hall of half-octagonal plan. James developed this arrangement so that the ticket hall tower was based on a full octagon - the chamfered box form was a product of the restricted corner site. A prominent feature of this station was the louvered ventilation tower which also served to advertise the presence of the station. The walls of the lower range of buildings were twice set back to form steps - a feature repeated at Enfield West (now Oakwood, also by James with Holden). The canopy was of plain concrete with a stepped moulding on the soffit, the illuminated station name panel forming a frieze below the canopy. Window frames were painted light green, and for ventilation the top sections of glass in the ticket hall tower were omitted; metal hoods were later placed over these voids. In contracst to the exposed brick of other Cockfosters line stations, CH James selected grey, black and flame red tiling and black terrazzo for the ticket hall interior. |