High Street Kensington tube station


High Street Kensington is a London Underground station on Kensington High Street, Kensington. It is served by the Circle and District lines, and is in London fare zone 1. On the Circle line, the station is between Gloucester Road and Notting Hill Gate stations. On the Edgware Road branch of the District line, it is between Earl's Court and Notting Hill Gate stations. Kensington Arcade forms the entrance to the station.

Station layout

The station itself has four platforms─two through platforms and two bay platforms. Platform 1 is used for anticlockwise Circle line and westbound District line trains towards Gloucester Road and Earl's Court respectively. Platform 2 is for clockwise Circle line and eastbound District line trains towards Edgware Road [tube station (Circle, District and Hammersmith & City lines)|Edgware Road]. Platforms 3 and 4 are used for terminating District line trains from Earl's Court. Platform 3 is usually used for the Olympia service, which runs weekends and for special events, and platform 4 is usually only used at the start and end of the day. There used to be a waiting room between Platform 2 and 3 for customer use, but this was turned into a staff room for drivers shortly before the Circle line extension to Hammersmith was implemented in December 2009.
On Platform 3, westbound, there is one of the few surviving K8 telephone kiosks. Now used for the TfL internal system, the kiosk is Grade II listed.
Just south of the station is the junction where the Circle and District lines diverge.

Services

High Street Kensington station is on the Circle and District lines in London fare zone 1. On the Circle line, the station is between Gloucester Road and Notting Hill Gate. On the Edgware Road branch of the District line, it is between Earl’s Court and Notting Hill Gate.
The typical off-peak service from this station is:
Weekends and Special Events only:
routes 9, 23, 27, 28, 49, 52, 70, 328, 452 and C1, night routes N9, N27, N28 and N31 and Green Line route 702 serve the station.

Brief history

The station was originally built by the Metropolitan Railway after parliament passed the Metropolitan Railway's and Metropolitan District Railway's Bill in 1864. Work started in 1865, and in 1867 a barrel roof enclosed the station designed by the Metropolitan Railway's engineer Sir John Fowler. The station, originally titled Kensington Station, had four lines, two for the Metropolitan Railway and two for the Metropolitan District Railway. The station was further redeveloped under the plans of the Metropolitan Railway's consultant architect, George Campbell Sherrin, between 1906 and 1907. Sherrin's designs saw the barrel roof taken off with the platforms covered by plain wooden shelters on iron columns. The North end of the platforms saw a new superstructure built over them, which contained a new octagonal booking hall, and an arcade that led to the High Street. The space in the arcade was taken by neighbouring department stores Pontings and Derry & Toms. The octagonal booking hall was rebuilt by London Transport in 1937-38 to increase its capacity.