| Summary : Northfield (Ealing Halt) - on the District Railway's Hounslow branch - was opened on 16th April 1908, on the western side of the Northfield Avenue overbridge (see TQ 17 NE 139). When the go-ahead was given to extend the Piccadilly Line in 1930 the existing station had to move to the eastern side of Northfield Avenue to make room for access to a new depot. Piccadilly Line trains were extended to Northfields on the 9th January 1933. The resulting four track station, with two island platforms, was designed by Charles Holden with the on site assistance of Stanley Heaps. It is of reinforced concrete post and lintel construction, exposed at platform level, with partially load-bearing red brick infil. The flat concrete roof slabs are exposed as a flat cornice band to the ticket office as a feature of the composition under a broad eaves. The station is a symmetrical composition on a bridge, set behind a forecourt with flanking brick walls topped with impaled roundels. A low double entrance under the station sign leads through a bouble-height sqaure ticket hall with a single five-bay aisle to a lower rear passage, whence stairs under stepped enclosures descend to two platforms. The platforms, their structures and flanking walls form an integral part of the composition, the concrete canopies supported on piers in alternating broad and narrow bays - these latter filled by integral original fixed seating and roundels outlined in black. The ticket hall is clad in black tiles at ground floor level, with exposed bricks above and exposed ceiling lintels. Beyond the platform canopy four concrete slabs with stepped tops carry roundels outlined in black and poster boards. These are of a piece with the station itself. Northfields is a complete and unaltered example of a Charles Holden station. |