London Train Stations - Liverpool Street
This Grand Gothic Station is London's Busiest and Most Attractive
Oct 10, 2009
Liverpool Street Station is big! It has split-level shopping malls, restaurants, bookshops, grocery store and much more. This beautiful glass-covered railway station is a great place to spend an afternoon. It also is a treat for photographers, with its huge Victorian stone pillars and elegant ironwork. It is situated in the City of London in the heart of the financial district, an area stuffed with history.
Liverpool Street Station London - History
Early 16th-century maps show that the the site on which the station stands was once an infamous lunatic asylum named Bedlam. It was a terrible cruel place where the only care for its unfortunate inmates was restraint. In the 18th-century it wasn’t uncommon for people to pay a penny to look into the cells of the ‘freaks’ and make fun of their behaviour. The 19th-century brought about the closing of this house of horror and in 1874 the building of Liverpool Street Station was completed.
Liverpool Street Station during World War 2
Later, in the 1930s, nine months before the Second World War began, hundreds, if not thousands, of Jewish children ended up on Liverpool Station after escaping from Nazi Germany and the countries it had occupied. This movement to save the children from the death camps was called Kindertransport and by the time the war officially began in 1939 nearly 10,000 unaccompanied children had boarded trains bound for Britain, They got their first view of England on the journey to Liverpool Street Station. There is a very poignant bronze sculpture of a group of children carrying small suitcases and clutching a few special positions, like a teddy bear or violin.
Liverpool Street Station Today
The original 1874 building did not wear well and about a century later it badly needed serious refurbishing. It was not the light and airy place we see today but more of a cramped warren of a place, airless and unattractive. It was extensively modified between 1985 and 1992 and fortunately its huge pillars were saved and are still there in the station.
Liverpool Street Station is also called London Liverpool Street.The name ‘Liverpool’ refers to Lord Liverpool, three times elected prime minister 1812-27, and not to the port city and home of the Beatles on the north-west coast of of England. Its lines radiate to much of North East London and Essex, and out to Cambridge, Ipswich, Harwich and Norwich. This is the place to depart from for visits to Holland - there is a ferry service from Harwich.
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