Cannon Street Railway Station

1959.Cannon Street Station.

1959.Cannon Street Station.

1959.Cannon Street Station

See also Cannon Street Railway Bridge.

Opened by the South Eastern Railway on 1 September 1866, the original station building was designed by Sir John Hawkshaw and J. W. Barry and was characterised by its two Wren-style towers, 23 ft square and 135 ft high, which faced on to the River Thames. The towers supported a 700-ft long iron train shed crowned by a high single arch, almost semicircular, of glass and iron.

To this was joined in 1867 an Italianate style hotel and forecourt designed by E. M. Barry which provided much of the station's passenger facilities as well as an impressive architectural frontispiece to the street. This arrangement was very similar to that put in place at Charing Cross. The station is carried on a brick viaduct over Upper Thames Street. Below this viaduct there are remains of a number of Roman buildings, which form a scheduled ancient monument. Barry's five-storey City Terminus Hotel underwent two changes of name: first to Cannon Street Hotel, and later, as an office block, to Southern House.

The site had included some extremely old and dilapidated property, some of which, it was rumoured, had survived the Fire of London. The site had once been the Steel Yard but, more recently, the property had been in use by the Victoria Dock Company for wharfage. The rest of the ground required for the station, that part lying between Upper Thames Street and Cannon Street, was occupied by warehouses and offices, some of them of recent construction.

From 5-28 June 1926 the Southern Railway carried out various works, including the rebuilding of the platforms, relaying of the tracks and installation of a new system of electrical signalling - the four-aspect colour light scheme. The station was also renovated and the glass roof cleaned. The number of platforms was reduced from nine to eight, with five set aside for the new electric trains. The signal box spanning the width of the railway bridge was removed.

The station, which had been subject to structural neglect prior to the Second World War, suffered extensive bomb damage and was hit by several incendiary devices which damaged the roof. A high explosive also hit no. 8 platform. The original glass roof had been removed before the war in an attempt to save it. Unfortunately the factory in which the roof was stored was itself badly bombed, destroying the roof.

The station's prime location coupled with the property boom of the 1950s and the need for British Rail to seek alternative revenue streams made war-damaged Cannon Street a prime target for property developers.

Various plans were mooted for the reconstruction of Cannon Street Station, from the installation of a new ticket hall and concourse under Southern House in 1955 as part of British Rail's Modernisation Plan, to the construction of a car park and even a helipad.

In 1962 the British Transport Commission entered into an agreement with Town & Country Properties Ltd for the construction of a multi-storey office building above the station totalling 154,000 sq. ft. The cost of the development was £2.35 million and it was scheduled for completion by June 1965.

In preparation for redevelopment the remains of the once magnificent train shed roof had been demolished in 1958, and Barry's hotel (which had been used as offices since 1931) soon followed in 1960.

The architect selected to design the new building was John Poulson who was good friends with Graham Tunbridge, a British Rail surveyor whom he had met during the war. Poulson took advantage of this friendship to win contracts for the redevelopment of various British Rail termini. He paid Tunbridge a weekly income of £25 and received in return building contracts, including the rebuilding of Waterloo and East Croydon. At his trial in 1974 he admitted that shortly before receiving the Cannon Street building contract, he had given Tunbridge a cheque for £200 and a suit worth £80. Poulson was later found guilty of corruption charges and was given a seven-year concurrent sentence; Tunbridge received a 15-month suspended sentence and £4,000 fine for his role in the affair.

Poulson's building is remarked as being one of the most ugly of all station buildings in Britain, turning once a fine building into a hideous monstrosity. All that now remains of the original station architecture are the twin 120-ft red-brick towers at the country end and parts of the low flanking walls.

In 1974 the station closed for five weeks from 2 August-9 September to enable alterations to be made to the track and the approaches to London Bridge to be re-signalled. Traffic was diverted to London Bridge, Charing Cross and Blackfriars.

On 4 March 1976 an IRA bomb of about 10 lb exploded on an empty commuter train leaving Cannon Street, injuring eight people on another train travelling alongside. Had the bomb exploded 13 minutes earlier it would have caused widespread carnage as the train had been carrying commuters on the 7.49 from Sevenoaks.

On 15 February 1984 it was reported in The Times that Cannon Street would close. At the time, the station had been closed for weekends and evenings, and the publication of British Rail's new timetable for 1984-1985 revealed that it would lose all its direct off-peak services to the south-east. Services from Sevenoaks, Orpington, Hayes, Dartford, Sidcup, Bexleyheath, Woolwich, Lewisham and Greenwich would instead terminate at London Bridge except during peak hours. This was denied by British Rail which pointed out that it had invested £10m in re-decking the railway bridge, and that passengers travelling from the south-east during off-peak hours would most likely be visiting the West End and not the City.

In 1986 the station's twin towers, which had been Grade II listed in 1972, were restored in a £242,000 project. The works revealed that the east tower still contained a large water tank which was used during the days of steam to replenish locomotives and to power the station hydraulic systems. The brickwork was repaired, cleaned and re-pointed, and the weather vanes gilded to complement the dome of nearby St Paul's Cathedral. This work was one of the Railway Heritage Trust's first projects and coincided with an exhibition held in the station in August of the same year to mark its 150th anniversary.

Press Reports

1865 'The City Extension of the Charing-cross Railway to Cannon-street is being pushed forward with considerable energy on the part of the contractors. This extension is designed to fulfil two distinct uses: the first to convey passengers coming from the south-eastern district into the heart of the City, and the other to form a means oommunication between Charing-cross—the centre, as it were, of the west-end district — and Cannon-street — the most central point of tho City with regard to the great thoroughfares of business. ....
... These works comprise the widest railway bridge yet built over the Thames, indeed in any part of the world, a terminus which will be considerably larger than that of Charing-cross station, and an iron viaduct over the Borough Market supported on cast iron pillars. The remainder of the railway, with the exception of an iron bridge over Park-street, is built on a brick viaduct of the ordinary description. The bridge is, of course, the great work, and in its construction, Mr. Hawkshaw, the engineer, has employed, on a larger scale, the same principle which answered so successfully at the bridge at Charing-cross.
Cast-iron cylinders, 18 feet in diameter, and, in the first instance, about 13 feet high, are bolted together in segments. In this stage of the proceedings they resemble in shape enormous drums with the top and bottom open, and when made water-tight all round their circumference they are dropped carefully into the bed of the river. The upper surface of the bed consists of mud or silt, through which the water passes freely, but at a short distance downwards the London clay is reached, which is completely impervious to water. The object of the engineer is to reach this water-tight stratum. After the cylinder has been placed in its proper position on the bed of the river, the mud or silt inside it is excavated either by divers working in helmets, or more generallv by the process technically known as the "bag and spoon" process. As the ground is excavated, the cylinder sinks gently into the river-bed ; as it descends, additional rings of plates are from time time added to it at the top. When in this way the cylinder has become 20 feet in length, plates shelving inwards are attached to the top of it, which reduce the diameter from 18 feet to 12 feet. This diameter of 12 feet is thenceforward the size of the cylinder, and consequently above low-water mark, it appears as a pillar 12 feet in diameter. The object of this arrangement is to get as large a base as possible without having an unsightly appearance above water, and to avoid undue interference with the waterway of the river. Great care is necessary throughout the proceedings to keep the cylinders upright in their position, and strong timber shoring and strutting is employed for this purpose. The cylinder passes gradually down through the mud and silt till the London clay is reached, when the process of sinking is entirely altered.
The bottom of the cylinder being once well into the London clay, a steam pump is introduced, the water inside the cylinder is pumped out, and the ground at the bottom exposed to view. Navvies are then employed to continue the excavation, which proceeds thenceforward with speed and regularity till the bottom of the cylinder has reached a depth of between fifty and sixty feet below high-water mark. At this depth the London clay generally presents such a degree of hardness and consistency as satisfies the engineer, and thereupon the interior of the cylinder is filled up with concrete made with Portland cement, to the level of about 13 feet below low-water. This point corresponds with the bottom of the shelving-plates, which, as we have said, reduce the diameter of the cylinder from 18 feet to 12 feet. On the top of the concrete, brickwork in Portland cement is built to a few feet above low-water, and then a weight of 800 to 830 tons of iron, as a test, is placed on the top. This weight placed represents the pressure which would be brought to bear upon the foundation, supposing the whole area of the bridge, with its five lines of rail, was closely packed with tank locomotive engines. The testing being performed. the cylinder-plates are again continued to the underside of the girders of the superstructure, and the brickwork is also continued to within 2 feet of the same point.
Large granite bearing-stones are then placed on the top of the brickwork, and the cylinder, with the exception of the ornamental capital, mav then be said to be complete.
The bridge stands on four piers, each of which is formed of four boldly-fluted cylinders, arranged at right angles to the axis of the bridge. There are, therefore, sixteen cylinders in all. The spans, or openings, are consequently five in number. The two nearest each bank of the river are 125 feet wide in the clear, and the remaining three are 136 feet wide in the clear. The headway, or height of the bottom of the girders above high water-mark, varies from 24 1/2 feet at the side spans to 25 feet at the centre span. The superstructure of the bridge is unlike the Charing-cross bridge, inasmuch as the girders are all arranged longitudinally under the railway instead of their being girders at the side of the bridge, and cross girders supported by them. These girders are 8 feet 6 inches in depth, and the ends rest upon transverse box girders placed on the top of iron columns. There are to be five lines of railway on the bridge, and two footpaths, one on each side. The total minimum width of the bridge will be 80 feet, the same as the new Westminster-bridge.
The tops of the cylinders will be ornamented with moulded capitals, differing in this respect from the bridge at Hungerford, which makes no pretence to architectural ornament or effect, and which is simply an engineering bridge, and does not possess an ounce of metal that is not really required for the structural part of the works. The footpaths on each side will be carried by means of richly moulded cantilevers, projecting some 8 feet beyond the face of the outside girders; a handsome cast-iron pierced parapet will protect the foot-passengers, and add greatly to the generally ornamental character of the bridge. The overhanging footpaths and cantilevers will produce a striking and novel effect, and the deep shadow underneath them will give character to the whole structure.
Between the pier nearest the Middlesex abutment and the abutment itself the bridge widens out in the form of a fan from 80 to 201 feet in width, to accommodate the numerous curves necessary on approaching the station. The quantity of cast iron used on the bridge will be about 3,000 tons, and the weight of wrought iron nearly 3,500 tons.
The superficial area of the Cannon-street-bridge is larger than that of the London, Chatham, and Dover bridge at Blackfriars, in the proportion of about four to three.
The station — with which is combined an hotel — now in course of erection between the river and Cannon-street, has a substructure, formed entirely of brick arches, except where the important thoroughfare of Upper Thames-street passes underneath it, about midway of the length of the station, where the levels necessitate the employment of wrought iron girders. This crossing of Thames-street, occurring as it does in the centre of the station, forms in itself a work of magnitude. The span is not great, being 37 feet, but the width of the bridge is no less than 200 feet. The width of the station is also 200 feet, and its length 800 feet. It will contain nine lines of railway, five passenger platforms, and a roadway for cabs and carriages. It will be covered by a roof of one span of 200 feet wide and 118 feet high above the rails in the centre, similar in character to that of the Charing-cross station, which is, however, only 164 feet span and 100 feet above the rails in the centre. The station walls on which the roof rests will be 48 feet high above the rails, and are formed of piers and arches of the most massive appearance. Where Upper Thames-street intervenes, the station walls cross the roadway by means of a large semi-circular brick arch 37 feet in diameter. The booking-offices will stand at the end of the station nearest Cannon-street, and are to have a forecourt in front of them 90 feet deep by 210 feet wide. The large hotel is to be built over the booking-offices, which will form a great convenience to travellers on the railway. The original estimate for this extension of five-eighths of a mile in length was 800,000l., but the plans have since been considerably enlarged and many alterations made, which will, no doubt, bring up the cost to more than 1,000,000l., that being about the average mileage cost of the Charing-cross main line. We should probably not be far wide of the mark if we took the cost for this extension at the rate of nearly two millions per mile, including, of course, the large station in Cannon-street. The cost of the land has been enormous, and, as in the case of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway, the Legislature has imposed upon the shareholders the task of improving the adjoining thoroughfares to the station. "The City authorities," says the Railway News, "had the modesty to ask the Charing-cross Company to widen Walbrook, being the narrow street connecting the Poultry with Cannon-street. We are only surprised at the moderate nature of the request, and that the company were not asked to widen the whole of the Poultry as well, for the convenience of public traffic. As it is, they have widened Thames-street, for the 200 feet where it is crossed by the railway from 18 feet to 37 feet, thus giving to Thames-street not less than 3,800 square feet. The company have widened Dowgate-hill, which before varied in width from to 40 feet, to a width of from 40 to 43 feet, which has now an area of 16,730 feet, as against 13,480 square feet, or a gain of 3,250 square feet. Cousin-lane has been straightened and made uniform in width, and Bush-lane has been diverted and altered so as to bring it in a line with Allhallows-lane. The company have purchased property in the City at enormous prices, and have given to the public the benefit of the purchases to the extent of more than 8,000 square feet." Beneath the station there is a very large amount of cellarage and space available for depots or storing, and the trucks will be lowered down from the high level of the station, and raised by means of hydraulic lifts. On eaeh side of the river there is valuable river frontage, and access to the warehouses will be obtained through openings in the abutments on either side of the river. Mr. Hawkshaw, as we have stated, is the engineer to the Charing-cross Railway Company, and the works are being executed Mr. George Wythes, as contractor, the iron-work on the line being supplied by Messrs. Cochrane, Grove, and Co., of Dudley. Mr. John Barry, one of the sons of Sir Charles Barry, is the resident engineer of the line.'

1865 'The roof of the station is a great work in iron, immense as it is in its span. It consists of nineteen principal, with as many intermediate, ribs averaging about 34ft. between centres, exclusive of the principal terminals. The tension rods of the principals, although 5 3/4in. diameter, look, when in their places, as only as many stout wires. Tbe principals have struts from the rib to the tension rod from 4ft. to 30ft., with diagonal bracing in addition. The roof has intermediate purlines of lattice bracing. We should here state, perhaps, that the contract is being executed by Messrs. Cochrane, of Woodside, Staffordshire, under engagement to Mr. Wythes, contractor for the whole work, and that the delay in its execution, of which public complaint has been made, is attributable neither to one nor the other of the parties referred to but to causes beyond their control. This we can safely say, that on visiting repeatedly the bridge and station, we found as many hands employed as had room to work - 150 hands at the station, and about 200 at the bridge, with about a dozen steam engines to help them, and Mr. Wythes, ever ready with his able henchman, Mr. Canning, doing their best to facilitate the completion of this great undertaking.

1926 'GREAT CANNON-ST BRIDGE WIDENING. WINTRY NIGHT WORK. Railway engineers have been working steadily through the night on Cannon-street Bridge, at the task a placing in position a 72 ton girder, over 140 feet long. which is to bear the weight of the two extra rail-roads that will serve the station.
DROP OF 11 FEET. This evening the great mass of metal, swivelled into position during last night, will be lowered 11 feet on to the distributing girders that will bear its weight, and the new roads and the platform, that were dismantled last night to allow the girder to pass, will be laid over it. At midnight the men were working in the light of acetylene flares. Thin snow was falling. Ihe girder, built up beside the platform during the last fortnight, was pivoted at one end. The other rested on a small trolley. Rails were laid rapidly as the platform was taken down for the passage in the early hours of the trolley and its great load, drawn by powerful winches.'

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Sources of Information

• [1] Wikipedia