March 2021 - Gants Hill Underground Hall

Back in February a friend and I had started a project to photograph bits of the London Underground, and we had another trip out to do this in the middle of March – our last for some time as it turned out. This time, we started off at Waterloo, and did some photography there, and then went on to Bank on the Waterloo & City Line. Some more picture-taking, and then on to Canary Wharf on the Docklands Light Railway. Canary Wharf and the whole estate around there are enormously photogenic, so we stayed a while and took a load of pictures. But then on to Gants Hill where I took this photo. The hallway between the platforms is an impressive sight. Apparently (well, according to Wikipedia) the design was modelled on the Moscow metro:

“During the 1930s the London Passenger Transport Board had provided advice on the construction of the Moscow Metro and an internal report in 1935 by the Underground's engineers on the Russian capital's system led to the decision to construct a station in London to a similar design.”

I never knew that London Transport could claim some of the credit for designing the Moscow underground system! And Gants Hill is maybe the only place where they put those designs into our lives here in London. The hall is very easy to photograph and almost the only choices are whether to have people in the pictures or not. I thought that a person waiting for the next train would add interest and it was a bonus to see him doing the 21st century’s equivalent of reading the newspaper – checking his phone. I did take a number of photos here and it was difficult to choose my favourite. Maybe at some point I will get around to writing up a full story of our travels around the underground. 

And we are both really looking forward to getting out again to those lovely stations. There is grandeur and beauty even in the Tube!