Aldgate tube station
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Trains at Aldgate tube station |
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.
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 only became the terminus of the Metropolitan Line in
1941. Prior to 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. In
2005, one of the four bombs in the
7 July 2005 London bombings was detonated on a
Circle Line train that had left
Liverpool Street tube station and was close to Aldgate station.
Of the tube stations affected by the
7 July 2005 London 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.
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 only fell off the carriage roof when the train was jolted by the dense concentration of points at Aldgate.
*
7 July 2005 London bombings
