Northern Line: Kennington - Morden

I'd hoped that, rather like what to me is the top end of the Northern Line, the bottom end would also be largely above ground and blessed by a sequence of personable, quiet suburban stations.

Instead it's entirely below ground save for 15 measly seconds' travelling time. For someone charged with the self-appointed task of hopping on and off trains in order to pop in and out of every station, the prospect of almost a dozen round trips on soot-lined escalators via almost a dozen dirt-blown warm-to-baking platforms was not a welcome one. I thought the reason why there are so few lines running south of the Thames was because of the poor composition of the earth - yet here was a line remaining stubbornly out of daylight until almost journey's end.

In fact if you count the Northern Line's submersion between Morden and East Finchley as a continuous excavation, you have one of the longest tunnels in the world: 17.25 miles. I'm still picking the black snot out of my nose now.

Anyway, at least those near-dozen soot-lined escalators almost wholly conform to this brilliantly preserved art deco style of lighting:

And it'd be churlish to not admit some of the most strikingly-ornate stations of - I suspect - the entire network can be found south of Kennington, courtesy of Charles Holden who designed every single one of the class of 1926 (Clapham South - Morden inclusive). Indeed, as you head south from Kennington you move through four decades of history, beginning in the 1890s and ending up between the wars. So it's not all bad. Plus it even rained while I was doing this stretch, meaning at least I was cool above ground.

Both Oval and Stockwell originally hailed from 1890 when they formed part of the old City & South London Railway. Oval's interior has long been tastefully decked out in the inevitable cricket murals, while outside a nearby fountain afforded the chance for some ill-advised experimental photography.

Stockwell was opened in 1890 by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, but has since been totally rebuilt - several times. Originally it was the terminus for the world's first ever deep-level underground line, the City and South London Railway, which ran from King William Street (near Monument). It's now an interchange with the Victoria Line. Interchanges, I'm learning, are never that nice to look at from the outside. Still, it's another of those stations with a deep-level World War Two air-raid shelter underneath - the fourth I've met so far on my journey (after Belsize Park, Camden Town and Goodge Street). There are three more further south on the Northern Line - Clapham North, Clapham Common and Clapham South - with the eighth, and only non-Northern Line shelter, buried at Chancery Lane.

Here's a photo of Clapham North, and I'd like you to observe closely the behaviour of its subjects.

Yup, that's right - everybody is talking into a mobile phone. It wasn't staged; I only noticed it when I got home. Until the technology arrives that allows people to use mobiles underground, I guess this kind of sight, persons clustered around station entrances like workers round a factory tannoy, will only compound itself.

Of much more excitement (relatively speaking, of course) is the fact that Clapham North shares with its neighbour Clapham Common the distinction of being the only two below ground stations on the entire network which have single island platforms, i.e:

It makes for a right scrum when trains arrives simultaneously, reminiscent of those dreadful scenes in the Forty Minutes documentary on Angel when a horde of passengers fight to go up and down the same set of stairs at the same time. Fortunately it wasn't rush hour here:

It's actually quite thrilling (again, relatively speaking) to use such a perfunctory, if perilous, platform. Above ground Clapham Common (built in 1900, like its predecessor), boasts an equally distinctive quality...

...no proper station building. This dome sits on a traffic island. I'm glad I caught the rain in this photo.

When you get to Clapham South you're at the first of Holden's buildings, all opened in 1926, all to a similar design, and all defiantly eye-catching. This one sits on the edge of the common (grass included in shot) and was originally going to be called by the far more evocative name of Nightingale Lane.

This photo of Balham was taken a year ago, when I was walking the Capital Ring.

Meanwhile back in 2007, Tooting Bec was bedecked with flowers.

And Tooting Broadway was blessed with a statue of his nibs Edward VII himself.

More of the same excellence at Colliers Wood:

South Wimbledon isn't even in Wimbledon, but was given its name in the belief that Wimbledon had a higher social standing than its actual location of Merton.

And so to the end of the line: Morden.

For so many people, both Londoners and tourists, Morden must only ever exist as a name on a loudspeaker, flatly declaring "this train terminates at Morden". As such it's easily better known than any of its near neighbours on the Northern Line, yet is probably the least visited. It's an incredible edifice, originally built by Holden on open farmland and intended to form part of a larger complex of local shops and businesses. Suffice to say you'd need to head a good deal further south than this - already the southernmost station on the entire Underground - to find farmland now.

Despite the unexpected quirks and unanticipated delights encountered on this first line of my tour, my attitude towards the Northern Line hasn't changed from the outset. It still frustrates me as much as inspires. Apparently the endless engineering work will ultimately result in a new signalling system allowing for, I think, an 18% faster service, whatever that means.

To be honest, I'd settle for one that runs the same speed it does now but is slightly cooler than the inside of an incensed potter's kiln.

Northern Line: Camden Town - Kennington (via Bank)

Apparently there were plans in the late 1980s to run this part of the Northern Line, together with the High Barnet branch, as a completely separate Underground service. Maps were even produced for London Transport perusal, with the "new" line coloured a disgusting bile green.

Expediency probably overruled such a plan ever becoming reality, but there's something to be said for avoiding all the congestion created by having one line with so many branches and intersections. The Bank branch takes longer to get to Kennington than the Charing Cross branch, though it's not clear on the Underground map. Things appear to get off to a good start with trains bypassing Mornington Crescent and heading straight for...

Euston. It's then less than a minute to get to King's Cross St Pancras.

That's less than one minute to get to the King's Cross St Pancras Underground platforms. Not the station ticket hall. Nor the two titular mainline stations. Embroiled in seemingly never-ending renovation, to get from St Pancras Underground station to St Pancras mainline station you currently have to walk ages to get into the open air, whereupon you find yourself next to King's Cross mainline station, meaning you then have to walk ages to get to St Pancras and so on. This visitor-unfriendly arrangement is, however, going to be at least partly curtailed in November this year when the pompous sounding St Pancras International opens for business.

Anyhow, what you can see of the Underground station looks very nice indeed, as you'd expect for a completely redone interchange. It's topped in terms of excellence, though, by Angel.

It's undoubtedly one of my favourite stations to date, chiefly by virtue of being so cool. The air conditioning is incredible. On the (as usual) boiling hot day I was travelling this stretch of the Northern line, I was more than happy to loiter a few minutes on Angel's platforms. Or rather, The Angel. It's never been called this officially, but colloquially the extra article has been around for decades, cemented in the popular consciousness by that edition of Forty Minutes from the late 80s, The Heart Of The Angel.

Back then the station, built in 1901, was one of the worst in the land: grotty, falling apart and plagued by lifts that never worked and a rather blinkered, flippant staff (at least, this was how they were depicted on camera). Shortly afterwards, however, it was shut, completely rebuilt and now represents surely one of the best stations on the network: clean, fresh and with the longest escalators in Western Europe.

Old Street, also built in 1901, is a complete contrast: it lives under a roundabout, with no buildings on surface level at all.

There's another abandoned station just before Old Street: City Road, closed in 1922 and all building work, including the platforms, subsequently removed.

Bits of Moorgate date back to 1865, but the whole place was done over in the 1960s to better incorporate that other bit of the Northern Line which doesn't exist anymore, but at the same time does: the bit from Moorgate to Finsbury Park. Now run by First Capital Connect, I don't know why this line isn't more used or better promoted. Maybe the answer's in the question: namely, it's run by First Capital Connect. There are about seven different entrances to Moorgate from the street. This isn't strictly one of them, but it's the nicest.

Bank station, or The Bank as train drivers stubbornly call it, is lacking a proper surface entrance like Old Street. But then it is right next to the Bank of England and Royal Exchange buildings. And it's part of that sprawling, complicated jumble of tunnels that joins it and Monument station into one uber-interchange the length of an entire street. And one of the exits is *inside* the Bank of England itself. To be honest, it's quicker to walk from one to the other above ground.

London Bridge is a bad interchange if you're trying to hop from the Northern to the Jubilee Line. There's no hopping involved, more like a long schlepp. Albeit in part along one of those magical moving walkways. The Jubilee platforms are way nicer than the stuffy, skanky Northern ones, but then since they were only built a decade or so ago that's no surprise. London Bridge itself is the oldest station in the city, dating back to 1838. It's got a really imperial entrance.

Borough, on the other hand, has a tiny front door and no escalators.

Apparently things used to be far worse, with - until recently - precious little having been done by way of renovation since 1890. It looks great outside, though, with that concrete roundel on the roof.

And so to Elephant & Castle, a right roustabout of a station with, if you choose to leave by one of the two entrances, no particularly striking buildingwork at all. Typically, this was the one I went for. The other entrance is your familiar Leslie Green-styled affair, of the kind I've already encountered at Kentish Town and Mornington Crescent. No photos of that, I'm afraid. Just this glum atrium.

The end was in sight. Here's Kennington again, this time with that classic dome in shot.

Northern Line: Camden Town - Kennington (via Charing Cross)

After coming together in rather disjointed union at Camden Town, almost immediately the Northern Line splits again, one route heading south through the West End, the other heading south via the City. The former, seemingly forever referred to as the Charing Cross Branch, appears to get you south of the river faster than the other one, but as with anything to do with the Northern Line, appearances have nothing to do with reality. The City branch, for instance, gets you to Euston quicker than the Charing Cross branch, thanks to the latter making its first stop at...

Opened in 1907, it's always been one of the lesser-used Underground stations, so much so that when it closed for six years in the 1990s nobody really noticed. Fittingly its re-opening was attended by the surviving practioners of the eponymous I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue game. There's a plaque to Willie Rushton somewhere or other. I've never seen anyone get off at Mornington Crescent. Fact.

After Euston, gateway to the north...

...with its ludicrously overheated Underground tunnels and statue of the London-Birmingham Railway founder Robert Stephenson, it's but a particularly aeronautical stone's throw to...

Warren Street. Many's the time I've got off a train early or walked on to Euston rather than plunge into the humid depths of this dank, dark station. Its platforms are badly-lit and like an oven, even in winter. It's another 1907 vintage, ditto Goodge Street:

As is suggested by the fact it looks like it's squatting in an otherwise unexceptional block of flats, the station has no room for escalators, only four worryingly tatty lifts. It's another station that has a World War 2 deep-level air-raid shelter underneath it - the one, in fact, from which Eisenhower broadcast the announcement of the invasion of France on 6th June 1944.

To be honest, if you're travelling along any part of this branch of the Northern Line, it's quicker to walk. From Warren Street to Embankment you get stations every five-10 minutes on foot. Tottenham Court Road is even less of a stone's throw from Goodge Street.

Another manky station, befitting the clatter and grime that gets whipped up on Oxford Street, I don't think I've ever used this station and not felt myself physically getting dirtier and sweatier the further down I go. The infrastructure dates back to 1900. The smells do too. Perhaps if the long-mooted Crossrail service ever gets built, the whole station will get totally rebuilt.

Leicester Square is far better, though I'm probably speaking more out of familiarity with the station I used for a year or so to get to work.

Leslie Green was the architect of the original 1906 building; Charles Holden gave it a spring clean. There used to be a busker in this station who played the harp. The story of Charing Cross is a melee of name-changes, station-mergers and pretend-connections. The present day station is actually two combined: Trafalgar Square, originally on the Bakerloo Line, and Charing Cross, solely on the Northern Line. There was soon another station to the north, Charing Cross (Strand), which quickly lost its first two names, and Charing Cross (Embankment), which lost its last name. Then when the Jubilee Line was extended through to the area in the 1970s, everything was rolled up into one. Except Embankment, as it was now called, which still exists - less than 60 seconds walking distance from its parent, ten times as far if you use the Underground, and quicker to reach than the end of this paragraph. Under the river it's Waterloo... ...and then on to Kennington: Newly refurbished, it still bears traces of its construction in 1890 as part of London's first deep-level line, the City & South London Railway. It's also a pleasantly leafy and lazy rendezvous where the Northern Line becomes one again.

Northern Line: High Barnet - Camden Town

It was unseasonably hot when I tackled the other, nicer, longer "side" of what were once somewhat mystically called the Northern Heights. It was also very quiet all the way down the line. The latter helped offset the former, as well as helping to render the net-curtained realms of Finchley, Mrs Thatcher's old stamping ground, unashamedly appealing.

High Barnet, the terminus, sets the tone for the whole of the branch: unassuming, leafy, serene.

10 miles from Charing Cross and teetering on the edge of Hertfordshire, the building dates back to 1872 when it was the last stop on a line that ran from Finsbury Park to Edgware via Highgate. You're in no doubt you've come to the end of the line.

The otherwise simple business of leaving the station to head south is defiantly confusing. While I was there, three trains sat for ages at different platforms with their doors open. Fortunately I gambled correctly and selected the one that left first. Others did not. I suspect all termini tend to operate in a similar fashion.

The line sweeps down the valley of the Dollis Brook with pretty spectacular views across the surrounding countryside. Totteridge & Whetstone station looks and feels like a village corner shop.

Woodside Park is even more pastoral, with trees, flowerbeds and greenery lining both platforms, and a large piece of ground outside once used for storing coal.

Like its predecessors it was established in 1872, deep in rural Middlesex, and has its entrance at the end of a deafeningly quiet cul-de-sac. Walking into West Finchley, meanwhile, is like entering a scout hut or oversized garden shed.

Apparently it's one of the least used stations on the whole line. Built in 1933, it's still got ancient signage a-plenty.

Finchley Central is a much grander affair, and even older, dating back to 1867.

There's another entrance behind this one, up above the other side of the tracks, which, amusingly - or frustratingly depending on your circumstances - seems to require you to cross back over the lines and go through the ticket barriers (from the wrong side) to get to any ticket machines.

The whole station also resembles the deck of a ship, with a walkway running from one side to the other and the platforms below. Of course, there's another opportunity for erroneous carriage chicanery at Finchley Central, thanks to the short stub of a line which shoots off westwards towards...

Mill Hill East. And no further.

Services to and from this lonely outpost have been scaled back severely in the last year or so, meaning it's now impossible to travel from Mill Hill East direct to central London except in peak hours on weekdays. The rest of the time you have to change at Finchley Central.

When it was opened in 1867 it was part of the same line that went from Finsbury Park to Edgware, linking the two northern branches of the, er, Northern Line together into one. Tracks began to be laid to allow for electric Underground trains to run a similar service...only for World War Two to intervene. Work never progressed beyond Mill Hill East - hence the present lowly circumstances. A driver now has to go back and forth between Mill Hill East and Finchley Central hour after thankless hour.

Still, it's a spectacular journey, almost entirely above roof level, with epic views in all directions.

Back to Finchley Central, it was on down the line to East Finchley: an absolutely fantastic building, rebuilt after the 1867 original was demolished when the line was converted from steam to London Underground trains.

The present station was conceived by Charles Holden - perhaps the Underground's greatest ever designer, responsible for the dozens of iconic Art Deco stations that dot north and west London, plus Bristol Central library and the soaring, sensational Senate House in Bloomsbury.

On top of the station is a superb 10-foot tall statue by Eric Aumonier of a kneeling archer, shown as if having just released an arrow along the line towards central London. It seems totally out-of-place, and is probably ignored by 99% of passers-by. Seeing it for the first time, though, was a revelation.

I took these two photos last year, on a wet day in early July (I know: rain, in London; it can happen). It was the same day I went to Highgate:

This marks the point where the line disappears underground for the first time since High Barnet. It's another of Holden's stations, but only half-finished because the money ran out (it was originally intended to be a junction between the main line and yet another branch running off to Alexander Palace via Muswell Hill). It sits on the side of a hill with a 'low' entrance at the end of a tranquil cul-de-sac and a 'high' one up on the main road. To get from one to the other involves a ludicrously giant escalator ride.

From art to artlessness: Archway was my first disappointment of the day.

In contrast to just about everything on the line up till now, it's a dirty, ugly building hailing from 1907 which, despite benefiting from some Charles Holden tinkering in the 30s, now squats beneath a giant tower block by a menacingly busy road filled with poky shops.

Tufnell Park, another 1907 vintage, at least has a bit of Edwardian flare still intact.

While Kentish Town, its exterior soldiering on since 1868, has much more swagger and grandeur:

South Kentish Town was built in 1907, was shut down during a strike at a nearby power station in 1924, and for some reason never opened again. Apparently it was never really used in the first place. John Betjeman later wrote a short story called, appropriately, South Kentish Town, about a passenger who became trapped in the disused sation when a train stopped there by mistake.

And so to Camden Town, the point where both Northern Line branches collide, and the end of this - largely - tranquil excursion. The lift still wasn't working.