Iconic Underground station entrance listed
AT the end of July, the entrance canopy of the Central Line's Newbury Park station was relisted as a Grade II building.
Constructed using an approximately 60m wide reinforced concrete vaulted design, with Chesil Beach pebble aggregate and copper panel roof cladding, the canopy was Grade II listed for the first time in 1981. Although it was one of the first postwar buildings to be protected, it was delisted by the Planning Act 1990. This was specifically because of the attached London Underground station ticket hall to the west side of the shelter.
Commissioned in 1937 by London Transport Passenger Board chief executive Frank Pick from architect Oliver Falvey Hill, as part of London Transport's New Works Programme to extend the Central Line east from Liverpool Street, work to construct the canopy was delayed by the Second World War, with many of the completed tunnels famously used to produce ordinance to support the war effort.
Building work on the canopy began in 1947, after the first stretch of line opened to Stratford in December 1946.
Newbury Park station opened to become an eastbound terminus for six months between December 1947 and May 1948, when the line was extended to Hainault. Construction work was completed in 1949, with the structure complimented on its bold yet graceful structurally expressive design, defined by the broad reinforced-concrete vaulting and the slender copperpanelled roof arch.