Summary : Ealing Common station opened on the 1st July 1879 to serve the District Line. It was renamed Ealing Common and West Acton in 1886 before reverting back to Ealing Common on the 1st March 1910. The initial brick built station was designed by a Mr Clemmence under the supervision of John Wolfe-Barry as part of the District Railway's extension from Turnham Green to Ealing Broadway. The present station dates from 1931 when the Piccadilly Line was extended from Hammersmith to Hounslow West. The station opened to serve Piccadilly Line trains on the 4th July 1932. Designed by Charles Holden with the on site assistance of Stanley Heaps, the ticket hall is of Portland stone construction with a flat roof an a concrete bridge. The station has a single-storey entrance facade with a central opening under a projecting canopy. Behind it rises the heptagonal drum of the ticket hall, incorporating three kiosks in the side walls. At the rear, stairs under stepped enclosures lead to the platforms with semi-enclosed shelters with original fixed seating at their feet. The ticket hall features floor tiling with an heptagonal star mirroring structure, original bronze shop fronts to kiosks. The entrance canopy has a coffered soffit, with over it a projecting solid toundel, its pole restored since 1987. Ealing Common also appears to have been the first Underground station at which a backlit entrance canopy was used to display the station name on an all-glass panel. Basil Ionides FRIBA, a leading interior designer of the day whose work included the Savoy Theatre, decorated the ticket hall. Ionides chose a colour scheme of grey, green and cream. The upper walls and ceiling were rendered and painted whilst the floor was inlaid with a black star motif. Ealing Common station is one of only two examples of the Underground style of architecture in transition between the classical style of 1920s stations and the Scandanavian or Dutch inspired models that followed later. |