Arnos Grove () is a London Underground station. It is located in Arnos Grove in the London Borough of Enfield, north London. The station is on the Piccadilly line, between Bounds Green and Southgate stations. It is in London fare zone 4.
The station opened on 19 September 1932 as the most northerly station on the first section of the Piccadilly line extension from Finsbury Park to Cockfosters. It was the terminus of the line until services were further extended to Oakwood on 13 March 1933. When travelling from east of Barons Court and through Central London, Arnos Grove is the first surface station after the long tunnel section of the Piccadilly line. The station has four platforms which face three tracks.
The station was designed by architect Charles Holden, and has been described as a significant work of modern architecture. On 19 February 1971, the station was Grade II listed. In 2005, the station was refurbished with the heritage features also maintained. In July 2011 Arnos Grove's listed status was upgraded to Grade II*. The station was awarded with the Best Newcomer and the Best Overall Garden in the Underground in Bloom 2011 competition and also in the London in Bloom competition.
Location
The station is located on A1110 Bowes Road, serving a medium-sized residential area. Arnos Grove is the first surface station after the long tunnel section which starts east of Barons Court and passes through Central London. The station and surrounding neighbourhood of Arnos Grove take their names from the Arnos Grove estate, which was to the north of the station. The station is part of the Arnos Grove group of stations, comprising all seven stations from Cockfosters to Turnpike Lane, and the management office for the group is in Arnos Grove station. Linked to the station by a lineside passageway is Ash House, which is a drivers' depot. Nearby attractions include Arnos Park, Broomfield School and Bowes Road Library. Arnos Grove is known for its circular ticket hall and as a quiet, peaceful and green neighbourhood until the 1960s. When the Piccadilly line extension came, Edwardian villas were built in the area.
History
The Great Northern Railway (GNR) and its successor, the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), for many years refused consent for any extension into the suburbs of Haringey and Enfield. In 1902, parliamentary approval was obtained to ban any further extensions of London Underground lines northwards from Finsbury Park. This created a bottleneck at Finsbury Park, back then the northern terminus of the Piccadilly line. By 1923, a public campaign against the 1902 parliamentary ban emerged, and Frank Pick had risen to assistant managing director of the Underground group. To help address this issue, Frank Pick gathered photographs of the congestion at Finsbury Park and distributed to the press. In 1925, the LNER gave in to the objection. Pick began working on the extension proposal and obtained parliamentary approval in 1929. The alignment was based on the absence of property development along the line. Funding was obtained from legislation under the Development (Loan Guarantees and Grants) Act 1929 instead of the Trade Facilities Act. Tunnel rings, cabling and concrete were produced in Northern England, while unemployed industrial workers there helped in the construction of the extension. 22 tunnelling shields were used during construction which started in 1930. The station was opened on 19 September 1932 as the terminus on the first section of the Piccadilly line extension to Cockfosters. The line was further extended to Oakwood on 13 March 1933.
Incidents
On the night of 13 October 1940, during the Blitz, a lone German aircraft dropped a single bomb on houses to the north of Bounds Green station. The destruction of the houses caused the north end of the westbound platform tunnel to collapse. As a result, train services between Wood Green and Cockfosters were disrupted for two months.
On 11 August 1948, a passenger train was derailed when the front and rear bogies of a carriage took different routes at a set of points at the station.
Station building
Like the other stations Charles Holden designed for the extension, Arnos Grove was built in a modern European style using brick, glass and reinforced concrete and basic geometric shapes., although Charles Hutton, Holden's chief assistant stated Holden based the idea on a groundsman's lodge at Midhurst Sanatorium designed by Adams, Holden, and Pearson in 1904–1906. The centre of the ticket hall is occupied by a disused ticket office (a passimeter in London Underground parlance) which houses an exhibition on the station and the line. The original design by Holden was detailed by Charles Hutton, who also had to amend the construction method from Sudbury Town tube station due to issues with leaking shuttering for the concrete roof discolouring the brickwork. The building is one of the 12 "Great Modern Buildings" profiled in The Guardian during October 2007.