Aldgate tube station

For the train station in South Australia, see Aldgate railway station.

Aldgate

Station entrance
Aldgate Location of Aldgate in Central London
Location	Aldgate
Local authority	City of London
Managed by	London Underground
Number of platforms	4
Fare zone	1
Interchange	Fenchurch Street
London Underground annual entry and exit
2008	6.24 million
2009	5.974 million
2010	6.03 million
18 November 1878 (18 November 1878)	Opened
Lists of stations	DLR · Underground · National Rail · Tramlink

Aldgate tube station is a London Underground station located at Aldgate in the City of London.

The station is on the Circle Line between Tower Hill and Liverpool Street. It is also the eastern terminus of the Metropolitan Line. It is in Travelcard Zone 1, and its ticket office is part-time only.

Platforms 1 and 4 at Aldgate are the only two platforms on the network to be served exclusively by the Circle Line. There are 2 other platforms used mainly by Circle Line trains: platform 2 at Gloucester Road and platform 2 at Edgware Road, however these can be used by District trains if required- i.e. during engineering work or disruption. All other Circle Line platforms are shared by the District, Metropolitan and/or Hammersmith & City Lines.

History

Aerial view of Aldgate Station

The station was opened on 18 November 1876 with the southbound extension to Tower Hill opening on 25 September 1882, completing the Circle. Services from Aldgate originally ran far further west than they do now, reaching as far as Richmond, and trains also used to run from Aldgate to Hammersmith (the Hammersmith & City Line now bypasses the station). It became the terminus of the Metropolitan line only in 1941. Before that, Metropolitan trains had continued on to the southern termini of the East London Line. The station was badly damaged by German bombing during World War II.^{[citation needed]}

In 2005, one of the four bombs in the 7 July 2005 London bombings was detonated by Shehzad Tanweer on a Circle Line train that had left Liverpool Street and was close to Aldgate. Seven commuters were killed in the explosion: Anne Moffatt, 46, Lee Baisden, 34, Benedetta Ciaccia, 30, Richard Ellery, 22, Richard Gray, 41, Carrie Louise Taylor, 24, and Fiona Stevenson, 29. Of the tube stations affected by the bombings, Aldgate was the first to be reopened, once police had handed back control of the site to London Underground following the extensive search for evidence. Once the damaged tunnel was repaired by Metronet engineers, the line was reopened, also allowing the Metropolitan Line to be fully restored, since the closure had meant all trains had terminated two stations early at Moorgate.

In literature

Aldgate tube station plays an important role in the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans (published in the anthology His Last Bow).

In the story, the body of a junior clerk named Cadogan West is found on the tracks outside Aldgate station, with a number of stolen plans for the Bruce-Partington submarine in his pocket. It seems clear enough that "the man, dead or alive, either fell or was precipitated from a train." But why, wonders Holmes, did the dead man not have a ticket?

It turns out that the body was placed on top of a train carriage before it reached Aldgate, via a window in a house on a cutting overlooking the Metropolitan Line. Holmes realises that the body fell off the carriage roof only when the train was jolted by the dense concentration of points at Aldgate.

Aldgate tube station is also given mention in John Creasy's 1955 detective novel Gideon's Day.

Transport links

Aldgate station is a short walk from Fenchurch Street railway station, which is served by trains run by c2c.

London bus routes 15, 25, 40, 42, 67, 78, 100, 115, 135, 205, 254 and night bus routes N15, N253, 550 and 551 all stop near the station.

Services

The off-peak service pattern is:

• 6tph (trains per hour) to Uxbridge (Metropolitan Line)
• 6tph to Edgware Road via Embankment (Circle Line)
• 6tph to Hammersmith via Liverpool Street (Circle Line)

In peak hours there are also Metropolitan line fast trains to Amersham and Watford. At off-peak times these depart from Baker Street.

See also

• List of London Underground stations

References

• Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 1-8526-0508-1. OCLC 60251199. 
• Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 0-9068-9999-0. OCLC 228266687. 

Preceding station		London Underground		Following station
Liverpool Street towards Hammersmith (via King's Cross St. Pancras)		Circle line		Tower Hill towards Edgware Road (via Victoria)
Liverpool Street towards Amersham, Chesham, Uxbridge or Watford		Metropolitan line		Terminus