January 11th: Charing Cross Station - 150th Anniversary

London's fifth busiest railway station, Charing Cross, opened on this date in 1864.

To celebrate the 150th anniversay of Charing Cross, here are some things you may not know about London's Charing Cross Station:

1. Before the station was built, a produce market called the Hungerford Market stood on the site, but it wasn't very successful, and had been damaged by fire, so the site was sold to the South Eastern Railway. As well as the market, three pubs were swallowed up by the station: The Reindeer, the One Tun Tavern, and The Bell.
2. The original station was basically an iron roof covering its six platforms, but a year later, the Charing Cross Hotel was built in front of it, giving it a French Renaissance style frontage.
3. Even further back in history, it was the site of an Eleanor Cross, one of a series of monuments erected by King Edward I, to mark the overnight stops of the procession of his wife Eleanor of Castile's body from Lincoln to London. A replica of the original cross was designed by the designer of the hotel, Edward Middleton Barry. Although it fell into such disrepair that it became dangerous, it was restored in 2010 and stands on the forecourt to this day. It has eight statues of Eleanor with an angel kneeling at her feet.
4. In December 1905, part of the station roof collapsed. Workmen were repairing and painting the roof at the time, and they noticed that a support rod had broken and the roof was starting to sag. There was just enough time to evacuate the station and stop incoming trains before the whole thing came crashing down over four of the six platforms. Six people died in the disaster and all the train lines were blocked. The station was closed for three months while the roof was replaced. This roof lasted until 1990, when it was replaced as part of the development of a new office and shopping complex.
5. During the second world war, the station was bombed several times. On one occasion, the canopy of a parachute mine got caught up in girders close to an already blazing signal box. Firemen fought all night to stop the flames from reaching the mine, which, had it exploded, would have destroyed the entire station and Hungerford Bridge. Even so, the heat from the blaze fused the unexploded mine to the railway tracks, but it was successfully removed after clearing the area, and normal train services resumed fairly quickly.
6. From Charing Cross Station you can travel to such places as Dartford, Bexleyheath, Gravesend, Gillingham, Sevenoaks, Woolwich, Tunbridge Wells, Canterbury, Ramsgate and Dover, crossing the Thames  by the Hungerford Bridge. In fact, some of the platforms extend onto the bridge. There is also a frequent local service to London Bridge. Arriving in London, the onward journey is likely to be from one of the two nearby tube stations, Charing Cross or Embankment.
7. The station has a postal address, which is 12-30 Strand, Charing Cross, London WC2N 5LR. It is convenient for a number of tourist attractions in London, including Trafalgar Square and the Houses of Parliament.
8. The station entrance bears a shield with a lion and griffin and the motto, “Onward”.
9. The location of the station has meant that there has never been an increase in the number of platforms – there are still only six, which have to be skilfully managed in order to cope with the amount of train traffic passing through every day – some 37 million people over the course of a year.
10. There is also a Charing Cross railway station in Glasgow.