The Station Built Out of Spite: Tower of London
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- Опубліковано 18 чер 2022
- It took sixteen years for the Metropolitan Railway to build a stretch of track, but two days for them to build a station to annoy their rivals.
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I love how people fed up literally formed a "Get the thing done" company.
Same thing happened in Los Angeles with the Gold Line to Pasadena.
@@themoviedealers Or, um not. The Gold Line was always owned by the government and was delayed mainly because a ballot measure banned the construction of underground tunnels/subways anywhere in Los Angeles County (it was originally going to connect to the Blue Line and be called the Pasadena Blue Line). Eventually a congressman introduced a bill create a new government agency to build the above ground section from Union Station to Pasadena. Note the lack of competing businessmen, or any businessmen, really, or competing personalities even (the voters banned it's construction by banning subway tunnels).
There is currently a project to finally connect the two sections called the Regional Connector which should open later this year, after being behind schedule for several years.
I love how it was even in the name. The name itself had the word "completion". As in, this company was made to complete the job of the other one 😂😂
Years ago London Transport featured famous people from history advertising various stations. Perhaps not surprisingly Henry VIII was chosen for Tower Hill. He was pictured asking for a return to Tower Hill. Next to it someone added "and a single for the wife"
That's brilliant
So like a tinder advertising?
I don't get it
@@lukealadeen7836 i want answers too!
@@nolesy34 he killed alot of his own wife's.
Kind of ironic really, the Tower Of London station is built in a very similar way to it's namesake, The original Tower of London was built out of wood so William The Conquerer could get a castle up quick to assert his authority over the population, and then replaced it with the Keep that still exists today. Sounds like they built the old station for the same reason!
Some TV company needs to make a series out of the Edward Watkin/James Stats Forbs rivalry. There certainly is plenty of drama there!
It'll need a bit of Charlie Yerkes in it too to stir things up from mid way through series 2.
@@Ad-gn8pl definitely! He'd get a big dramatic entrance through double doors halfway through a meeting/arguement!
wheres tim dunn and siddy holloway they would do it.
I could easily vsee Timothy West, and the late, great John Thaw as the chief protagonists.
@@Ad-gn8pl 😂
On a visit to the Tower of London, a beefeater told us that a tourist who was puffed out from walking from the tube station, asked why they hadn’t built the Tower closer to the station…
Huh, the tube station is ... right there though, how much closer did they think it could be? XD
building something out of spite makes a lot of sense. it's one of the strongest things known to man and generally takes quite a long time to break down entirely
Almost as good as scratch
Not if you only spend two days building it !
My memory is very unreliable, but it tells me that the new Tower Hill station opened in 1967 without any forewarning (if that is one word) and that passengers arrived at the station one day to find that it had moved (although passengers travelling to and from the west would have noticed its construction). I think that that is what they should have done with Crossrail, just start running trains one day without letting anyone know the date. That would really have made life tough for people with railway related UA-cam channels
it's what they did with Metro line 4 in Copenhagen because it opened during the Covid lockdown. On 28 March 2020 the trains started rolling and the news went "by the way, the line is open now"
Good idea Jon
I traveled to it the day it opened. I seem to remember wooden platforms so it must have not been complete, just near enough to open to the public. I was only about nine years old at the time and never understood why a new station was needed. Now I know; nice vid.
@@Maltloaflegrande 1882 you were 9?
@@Marquis-Sade The comment I replied to was about the one that opened in 1967. I'm kinda glad I wasn't 9 in 1882; can imagine some pretty grim health issues.
Great summary of how the Victorian travelling public were subjected to prolonged inconvenience by what was essentially a clash of personalities. The two companies clashed and dithered again in the later 1890's over the electrification of the Circle Line. No wonder our American anti-hero Charles Tyson Yerkes (who eventually sorted them out) testified to a parliamentary enquiry that their behaviour was 'probably a disgrace'.
_Probably_ xD
"And I should know!"
It really shows the best and the worst of having those lines build by private companies.
@@countluke2334 It's not like public companies don't have spats - let's look at TfL-DfT relations shall we?
he can't say definitely, he knows deep down he'll do that too
Jago, can I just congratulate you on the line "'If you don't knock it off, it's ring-a-ding-ding for you bozos', (or words to that effect)". Masterful writing that makes history come alive!
Thank you!
@@JagoHazzard I seem to remember that line from The Onion, although perhaps it came from somewhere else.
That and working in both 'monkeyshines' and 'jiggery-pokery'.
Forget "Mornington Crescent- the board game". This has all the makings of a Christmas pantomime, with Watkin as the villein, all top hats, green lighting and exploding side-whiskers.
An internecine mafia feud, with an incidental public transportation system thrown in for good measure. Brilliant stuff, Jago this is far more illuminating than any history book on the subject could be!
THERE'S A MORNINGTON CRESCENT BOARD GAME????????????????????
There are a number of tube pioneer pantomime villains, enter evil Chicago Charles! Now wicked Eddie Watkins. You wonder the did not try to tie victims to tracks.
@@garethaethwy Yes, it costs £30. Plus £156,492,581 for the rule books.
Difinitely. Or even a Peaky Blinders type of series.
@@jammin023 : You little tinker. You had me going there for a minute.
The background makes the story - so no need to apologize. Excellent tale, per usual
The District Railway supposedly refused to sell any tickets to Tower of London only Mark Lane although the period they were both open suggest this was just a gesture. Although both it and the Met were fond of sending people the wrong way round the Circle to use their own services.
Private rail companies caused chaos and replication of resources as far back as the 1870s. We never learn. Excellent overview and histories. Fenchurch St and Tower Gateway still unconnected and riven by 1960s giant roadways designed to alienate the pedestrian🙀ol
As someone from south Essex, I'm sure I'm not the only one for whom Tower Hill was, and often still is, my first experience of the Tube. For that, it will always hold a soft spot in my heart.
C.T. Yerkes, shenanigans on Friday and Watkin Shenanigans on Sunday my weekend has been COMPLETE
"I just find it funny that you have one of the best known transport systems in the world and it was shaped by petty rivalry."
*Laughs in BMT/IND/IRT*
Major Facts ESPECIALLY with the IND
but competition is always good. fair competition i mean.
@@fly89 Lol Fair Competition.....To the IND there wasn't such a thing. That's why the D Train runs a block up from the 4 in The Bronx or the A Train following the 1 Train for as long as it can in Upper Manhattan.
It’s well known because it is so awful and disruptive
I’m in the building to be enlightened by Jago Hazzard !
Now he's just spoiling us. 👍🏻🇬🇧
Any time in the future I hear about neoliberal free market proselytes telling how the market will solve every problem on their own without government intervention I will tell them about the London Underground...
Yes, but anyone who lives in Britain has long and bitter experience of government intervention. Choose your poison.
I find all of your uploads so fascinating. I have lived most of my life in London and worked for London Underground, as it was called then, but had no idea how all of these different lines and companies run separately and the fierce competition. How it has evolved over the last 100+ years, but still some of the beautiful original architecture still remains, not only in stations still open, but other forgotten ones, that we probably pass by and not realise. You do such an amazing videos, and always with a bit of humour added into them.
This helps me realise why some District line trains terminate at Tower Hill when you'd think it would be more useful for them to carry on to Aldgate - getting from Tower Hill to Aldgate or Liverpool Street could be very annoying with gaps in the service. But Aldgate didn't have a nice empty space where another station had been 80 years previously.
As a City Guide I found this really useful. Thanks Jago.
Ah bit of good old fashioned British spite, ya can't beat it!
San Francisco gained a four-track streetcar line when two streetcar companies, one city-owned, and the other not, laid two double-track lines in the middle of Market Street, the famous "Roar of the Four". In Los Angeles, for a time, Southern California Edison and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power laid electric power lines down the same streets, until Edison agreed to sell their infrastructure. And in Chicago, the Chicago elevated railway built short branches in many locations to compete with the streetcar company. In the most extreme example, the elevated built a circle through the Chicago Stockyards, while streetcar tracks served the same area. All the duplication was eliminated shortly after both companies were taken over by the City of Chicago.
The subject as instantiated in the present is fair to midling while its context is epic. This reminds me of a lot of Los Angeles.
"Why does this... boring... overpass... seem so familiar? Oh! Because of all the movies it's been in where it pretended to be in another city!"
I love your work, good Jago. This was another treasure. I need to give you money. You please my eleven-year-old self, who in 1986 purchased a money order in foreign funds so he could order a PVC apron of the Underground map from London Transport. (It has held up -- I got my £19 and shipping's worth.) Your videos are centering (centring?) and leave me ready for a new week ahead.
With all the going on between the bosses its a miracle we have anything to show for it now.
I love the madness involved in how our trains were built
We got monkeyshines and jiggery-pokery? Lovely.
I love the poppy variation of the traditional tube logo.
I’m pleased that the UA-cam algorithm has finally correctly identified me as a nerd interested in London and trains and suchlike, and served me up this video from your channel! I believe I’ve got some catching up to do :)
My Sunday made
I suspect Tower Hill is the station I have most used on the network, seeing as since the 1970s it was the station at the end of my local line (what is now c2c). I remember being utterly crowded before the major rebuild and as a kid was always excited as it usually meant we were there to go to a museum, gallery or another Mainline station to visit relatives 😎 I can even see the old style train indicators on the eastbound platform and waiting for the first two trains to pass before finally “Circle Line via Liverpool Street” appeared and we were soon on our way! 😄
In fact, I last used it only last Friday for a school reunion by Blackfriars. A splendid night too at a great pub. Maybe that is what was wrong with Watkin? I am sure I read that he was tea total or something, and they do a great pint of Tribute at The Black Friar. Poor Eddie baby 🤷🏻♂️
Cheers mate, great film again 🍀👍🍻
I really enjoyed this video but I found it really hard to follow and kept having to rewind. There are so many different rail companies from that period and they sound so similar. It would be great if you could bring up the names and logos of each company each time you mention them, they're really hard to keep track of and distinguish. Also have maybe animations or diagrams showing the lines so we can follow where train ran, and then stopped running, where rerouted to etc.
This seems like an argument against having private rail companies, who are bound to compete for business. Perhaps such an important piece of infrastructure as a railway system should be nationalised! See also, electricity, water, telephones...
To be honest, i found his previous video much more confusing than this one. Probs because it involves more planned lines that didn't see the light of day.
0:58 that's the first time in years I've heard that specific variant of 'Mind the Gap'. I thought it had been phased out like most of the other versions, replaced with that godawful version that you can hear at 5:08
It's wonderful story. The widow of the original announcer - Oswald Laurence - asked TFL to put his voice back. And they did - but only at Embankment. A believe a certain youtuber "Jago Hazzard" has done a video on this. It might be worth checking out.
@@TheOoblick I'm aware of the story, that's why I said 'most other versions'. As far as I knew, that one at Embankment was the only unique one still being used on the network. The one I can hear in this video should be the one this link takes you too: ua-cam.com/video/7Fw8l5tCi18/v-deo.html
Maaind, Thaa Gaap
Spite was a favorite construction material of the ancient Phoenicians.
I am not so much surprised at the level of skulduggery as I am shocked that Charles Tyson Yerkes wasn't involved LOL.
Excellent use of the term "jiggery pokery".
I've been in America since I was a kid, but you bring me joy with your videos; I love the History, and I wish I could be back there.
I remember using Tower Hill station once when I came down from Leeds for a weekend trip to London as my hotel was nearby and I was hugely underwhelmed with the station from what I was expecting it to be!
I remember Tower Hill all to well. Second car from the front, up the stairs, turn right and run for the first train to Southend from Fenchurch Street
Of all the nerdy infrastructure-related channels to which I subscribe, yours is the only on where I look forward to hearing the Patreon thank at the end.
"You are the compliment to my presentation"
Great video Jago
And, at the far Eastern end of the Westbound through platform at Tower Hill it is possible to see part of the foundation of the Roman city wall. I don't know if that was true of the earlier station.
I remember going there almost 10 years ago. The bits of Roman walls nearby made the station memorable!
Yes, you come up in that little park with a big sundial and a Roman wall, with a direct view of the Tower of London but with slightly confusing signage as to how to actually get there.
What the interchange between Fenchurch Street & Tower Hill needs is some signage! Any time I've tried it I've walked out of Fenchurch Street & stood there for a minute trying to get my bearings before getting my phone out & opening gurgle maps. I'm quite familiar with London transport, despite being an out-of-towner, so a foreign visitor in London for the first time could spend an hour looking for the Tower
Considering that the Tower itself was built by William the Conqueror as a (Non-)Mobile Oppression Palace, it's fitting that the eventual Tube station named after it should be built out of spite.
I'm pretty sure "It's a ring-a-ding-ding for you Bozos" was commonplace Victorian slang.
For sure.
The forgotten Unfinished London episode... jokes aside this was an awesome video in its own right! Good job!
Always interesting to hear the history of the lines and stations
Just beyond the roundel on the column at 6.23, there is a park, garden and memorial for those lost at sea in WW1 & WW2. We discovered a year or two back that my Grandfather was named on it. being a Trinity House pilot, lost at sea in 1940. Trinity House being to the East of the Tower of London / Tower station. We were delighted to find the memorial, despite the fact many of my family members had worked in the Tower Hill area and had walked past that memorial almost daily for years. We only found out last year the GF died at sea, but was not lost to the sea. He was laid to rest in the CWGC cemetery in Gravesend and had been laid to rest with ceremony, but without a memorial. Luckily CWGC have now addressed this and a memorial is being organized. Ok nothing to do with the tube, but another memory triggered by the splendid series of films. Or as the family put it, you're not watching videos about the bloody underground again ? It's Geoff Marshall and Tim Dunn's fault !
Fascinating. I've often wondered why Tower Hill station is situated where it is, and why it is so non-descript.
Another marvellous tale from the tube. Your dry wit makes these videos so entertaining if not actually educational for those of us not necessarily interested in such abstruse matters.
Informative, and amusing ! Thank you, Jago ! Keep 'em coming !!
I remember both Mansion House and Tower Hill had 3 platforms so they could reverse back into the City. Do you know if they still have the "whistling buffer" at Mansion House. It was an embarrassment if a driver hit the buffer at Mansion House as it whistled.
I love how you use clips with snow in the summer. You probably started when it was snowing and only just able to finish. The plague really slower you down.
I may not have been created out of spite, but I do survive and thrive on it. I like this stations backstory, for obvious reasons.
One of the few Underground stories that don't involve Yerkes
I would just like to say my friend that all of your videos are 1st class... Highly recommended to view... Top draw... Once again many many thanks Jago...
Well explained, really loved it, as usual!
I was going to tell a joke about these stations but it's too Tower-able to tell
Off with his head
Built out of spite? Sounds like something my sister would do. Years ago, when I was learning to drive, she decided she was going to pass her test before me. She actually went and bought THE car I was going to buy, just so I couldn't have it. Not an identical one. Not a similar one. THE ACTUAL CAR.
She drove it about six times, and its been sat rusting ever since. It's now 21 years old. We're scrapping it next week.
She still didn't learn to drive.
She's reminded of her pettiness every time I drive past her in my sports car while she waits for the bus.
I don't hold a grudge; I blast my horn and give her a wave ;)
As a regular user of Tower Hill station I enjoyed this episode!
The British aphorisms in this video were outstanding. Champagne stuff.
Thanks Jago Keep Safe 😉👍
Does that mean that the 'Tower of London' station holds the record as the shortest lived station on the network?
Ohh, close , there are a couple of other challengers.
Congratulations on the use of both shenanigans and jiggery pokery in your script. Both great words / expressions. Cheers
Even better was the use of monkeyshine, a word I'd never heard before.
'if you don't knock it off it's ring-a-ding-ding for you bozos'.
I must remember this next time the neighbours play music too late at night.
Ironic how a station built for trains from the North and west became a useful turnback for trains from the south and west.
Excellent episode Jago
The last line of his script just before the outro. (Chef's Kiss)
Very interesting! My office was moved to America Square a few months ago, so I'm getting to know the area better. My building seems to have been built around the lines to/from Fenchurch St! There's plenty of history around (it must be less than a half a mile from where the Fire of London started) like St Olave's Church, if you are a Pepys fan, and French Ordinary Court, if you are just nerdy!! And such a contrast with all the new iconic buildings in the heart of the City!!
Slightly off topic, another thing I've been reading about recently is how or if the Underground line to Aldgate might have played a part in the 'Jack the Ripper' events in 1888. There's a theory that the murderer used the Underground to travel to the Whitechapel/Shoreditch area, rather than living there him/her self. Any thoughts Jago?
Your discussions of the background are why I follow your channel.
more petty rivalry tales please
Thankyou as ever. Always informative.
Now this is the content I come back for every time.
Informative and fun to know all this drama behind!!
It was nice hearing the background.
People often forget how petty the competition can get between businesses.
A very intersting video, I did visit Tower hill station back in May. :)
Cracking research as per Jago. Top notch 👍🏻
Now that really was a “tale from the tube” - shenanigans indeed!
Love it, another brilliant episode. If I'm ever on Desert Island Discs I'll ask for your channel as my luxury item.
Interesting and always fun.
Thanks 😊
To be fair, in being a monumental, world-altering edifice shaped largely by petty rivalry and profiteering, the Underground was just holding up a mirror to the Empire itself.
Tara Hill and Pettie Rievaulxry, sound like characters from some spy thriller action novel, maybe agents of SPYTE
I do everything out of spite, I love this 😂
Great video!
What an excellent tale. Bravo 👏🏿
Is Watkin Way one of those Roman Roads the Whitewicks Look For ?
No, ‘The Watkin Way’ is actually a revolutionary new diet plan.
@@AtheistOrphan Involves a lot of spite!
Another fascinating video.
The northern platform of Mark Lane is still there, still lit and still visible as you approach Tower Hill from the west
Is it visible on Google Street Map?
IDK where or how you manage to find such mundane facts and turn them into fascinating videos. Job well done. Cheerio from New England.
Loved this video!
Always amazing how...troublesome inter-business and interpersonal rivalries can be to the people as a whole. Very interesting story.
I am Alaskan and I can't tell you how much entertainment I get out of your slang
As long as you asked for a b' o ' wa' er the right way thats fine 👌
I love finding old videos that I haven't seen before!
Can you imagine what kind of system there might have been if they had been friends?
Quite possibly less! Tower of London might not have been built, so the rebuilt Tower Hill wouldn't have been either. And there are a lot of useful alternative routes through Kent thanks to the SER/LCDR rivalry. Feuds have their uses!
At 1:49, I can't help but notice the different spelling of the now Gloucester Road, as "Gloster" Road (or Rd. as is on the map).
There's an apostrophe to indicate that Glo'ster is an abbreviation.
On the map they just shorted it down with an abbreviation, the station has always been “Gloucester Road”. Jago briefly covered that small curiosity in his video on renamed Circle Line stations
And now I know a lot more about Mark Lane station, one that I'd never heard about until very recently.
And thanks again to the viewer who pointed me in the direction of this video in reply to my recent query about said station 😎👍
Liked your take upon this development, education of sorts.
Best wishes sent.
Really interesting story on the station...First time hearing about this after all this time. #TheMoreYouKnow
I used Tower Hill for many years and found the story fascinating
The whole problem could have been solved if Edward Watkins had of been sent to the original Tower of London. Put him in the Anne Boleyn suite so he could get his head around the problem!
The art you used for Watkin and Forbes made them look like a pair of Dickensian villains. Quite appropriate really