King William Street: a ‘ghost’ station of the world’s first deep-level electric tube

As the first railway of its kind in the world, the London Underground was innovative and experimental. Some of its early stations rapidly became unfit for purpose as the network grew. King William Street station was one of the early victims of this expansion.

The City & South London Railway (C&SLR) was the first deep-level electric tube railway. It opened in 1890, initially running between suburban Stockwell, south of the River Thames, and King William Street, near Bank on the northern side of London Bridge.

In its early stages the C&SLR was planned as a cable-hauled railway. The original contractor went bankrupt during construction, so electric locomotive operation was chosen instead. As this map shows, the railway was originally called the City of London & Southwark Subway, but it was renamed shortly before the line opened in 1890.

When the C&SLR decided to extend further north, the platforms at King William Street – the northern terminus – were pointing in the wrong direction. A new northbound tunnel was built in 1900, bypassing King William Street altogether, which was left abandoned after less than 10 years in operation. 

The station’s surface building was demolished in 1930. By this time the C&SLR was part of the Underground Group of companies that dominated public transport in London, but the business was struggling financially. 

To raise funds, they tried to sell the platform level of King William Street, inviting press photographers into the abandoned space. Their efforts failed, including a proposal reported in the Daily Mirror to use the site for underground farming. Eighty years later this became a reality in the disused Clapham Common deep-level shelter, which has been leased to a company growing salad leaves and micro herbs underground.
 

Like many active and non-operational stations on the network, King William Street was used as an air raid shelter during the Second World War. In the decades since, it was largely left empty and abandoned, bearing traces of wartime posters alongside original tiling. This 1890 glass insulator, from the railway’s power rails under the concrete, was retrieved by London Transport Museum curators in the 1980s.

In more recent years, the site has been absorbed into the orbit of the large project to upgrade neighbouring Bank station. King William Street’s original spiral staircase to platform level was used for access to the Bank work site, which gradually removed the last traces of the original station.