Hampstead: The Deepest Underground Station 

For a moment there I thought you were going to say "Charles Tyson Yerkes has been featured on this channel so often he practically has his own mustache".

In the mid/late 1990s I did the steps, thinking I could race my workmate who was getting the lift up. Yeah I got that one slightly wrong in my head when he offered me the bet! I arrived 5 minutes late for work, £10 lighter and covered in (probably 100 year old) soot and dust! As I exited the station, crossing the junction of Hampstead High St and Heath St, Jurgen Klinsmann (of Spurs) was sat at the lights in a posh Mercedes SUV with the window down. He laughed at me of course (as I was also wearing my West Ham shirt - a brave move in the 90s, even in places like Hampstead). Anyway, the bonnet of his pristine car got a little bit of tube history wiped across it as I passed.

I quite like the HampHazzard nature of this video. I'll see myself out now.

I’ve always found it ironic that the train goes from Hampstead (the deepest station) to above ground at Golders Green in one station! You can really feel the elevation travelling between them

For all those doubters on RU-vid I am now a multi-billionaire due to my successful "Yikes it's Yerkes" branded merchandise! Including Tee-shirts, socks and top hats! Why the return on my "Yerkes disposable mustache" line was enough for me to finance the Barbie movie!

Charles Tyson Yerkes Strikes again!!!

"...And you can tune in again next week for more of The Charles Tyson Yerkes show, when Frank Pick falls out with Harry Beck, while Albert Stanley forms a new alliance with Charles Holden. That's all coming up in next week's exciting episode, at the same time here on..." (With apologies to all my network continuity announcer friends).

Hampstead is the second deepest station, but the deepest open to the public. The deepest is North End Station AKA Old Bull & Bush (yet another Northern Line Station named for the local pub, after Angel and Elephant & Castle, and one could argue, Kings Cross too). Whilst it has platforms, stairs, and an above ground building it's for Underground staff only. It's 221 feet deep, whilst Hampstead is just 192 feet. North End was supposed to be opened to the public, and a proper platform, and one lift, if I remember correctly, were installed.

A video with Charles Tyson Yerkes. 2:10 A man practically in the regular cast! My Sunday is complete. Thanks Jago.

Could you do a dedicated video talking about how the Northern Line was funded and built? It blows my mind how they funded and built the Northern line with the deepest from surface station and highest viaduct all with private funding. They also built the station to areas that weren't that busy compared to today and still built stations there. I don't think they would be able to build the Northern Line today even with our modern tech.

I worked on the Station for seven months in the early 90's as my first Supervisor job - it was necessary to put the lifts into service by running them without anyone in them first thing and that meant walking the damned steps for each lift......i was a LOT slimmer as a result!

Meanwhile in NYC, the deepest station on the NYC Subway system is 191st Street on the IRT Broadway-Seventh Avenue Line at 173 feet/53 m below street level, so pretty close to Hampstead! It was built by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company and opened in January 1911 as an infill station along the city's first subway line (which originally opened in 1904, though wasn't extended through 191st street until 1906 and then 242 St in 1908). At the time, the surrounding neighborhood had a lower population than other areas, so they opted not to open a station at 191st Street, but when they decided to open one, interest in nearby real estate increased. When the station opened, people avoided it due to the topography. Officials knew that the area's hilly topography would make it hard to access the station, which is why they chose to build a pedestrian tunnel to save people a walk of a quarter to one-third of a mile (0.40 to 0.54 km) and a steep climb. The tunnel is used as a connector between western and eastern Washington Heights. Passengers using the 191st Street and St. Nicholas Avenue entrance need to take an elevator to access the station due to that intersection's height, but the elevators at that entrance are outside fare control, so it's considered a convenient way to traverse the neighborhood without walking up a hill! This tunnel is famous for its murals and graffiti, and was used as a location for the In the Heights movie.

Great film! Someone should give Yerkes his own channel...

A deep video in all sense of the word, thanks for your detailed research Jago!

Sounding a little hoarse today Jago, take it easy

I recommend taking the walk up he stairs at Hampstead if you want to get a bit fitter. Do it 151 times, and you have climbed Mount Everest. However, there is a sign which says don't climb the 320 steps unless it's an emergency, but who needs to pay any attention to that?

The stairwell height is equivalent to a 15 story building don't you know!

In my early tube exploring days, I went to Hampstead to see the heath - only to discover that the heath isn't actually at Hampstead! I emerged in an unexpectedly twee village (I had almost no idea of the geography of London in those days) and was totally bemused by the lack of actual 'heath'. I followed Heath Road, thinking the name might be a clue, and got as far as Whitestone Pond before giving up (Whitestone Pond might be very nice, as ponds go, but it wasn't my idea of 'heath'). I returned home puzzled and disappointed. Years later I discovered Hampstead HEATH station and realised , somewhat belatedly, the danger of assumption. Casual observers of TfL maps might wonder why it took me so long to find a station that is actually called Hampstead Heath, but I think true Londoners will sympathise with my problem. You see, Hampstead Heath isn't actually on the Underground! It's on that funny orange railway - one of those where you need to look at timetables. And that just wasn't going to happen...

Jago, if you take all stations into account, the deepest station on the system is Bull & Bush. Platforms were built, but not the rest of the station. There is a building behind a fence that looks just like any private building, but inside is a spiral staircase dropping to track level.

You are still one of my favourites as I become increasingly picky and grumpy about what interests or amuses me. KBO.

I found recently there’s was a station that was meant to be deeper station than Hampstead station which never opened/completed called North End which was between Hampstead and Golders Green and you could still see the abandoned platform today. Edit: Due to its location near the top of a hill, the station would have been, at 221 feet (67 m), the deepest below ground on the entire Underground network. The current deepest is the adjacent Hampstead station to the southeast.

Se have a station under construction here in the Stockholm underground that will be the second deepest in téhe world at 105 meters. The station will be on the Blue line extension and will be named Sofia. Due to the depth it will only feature elevators and not escalators as is customary. It’s supposed to be opened in 2025.

Thanks again Jago for an informative video. My 12yo son goes to Belsize Park daily and ONLY uses the stairs when exiting and entering the station. Every day. Refuses to use the lift! 189 steps!

Fascinating details yet again, thanks. While I realized the tiling patterns are unique, I would not have guessed the original intent was to let commuters distinguish stations in a blink.

Much of the central part of the Northern line is very deep. I once read that the deepest part of the tunnel is near Chalk Farm station. Yerkes bingo. 😁 The station enterance was once used in an episode of The Professionals. My late father planted Acanthus in our front garden. It's a tuber that grows like a weed, gets everywhere. He planted it because it was a much loved Ancient Roman ornament as a plant and on architecture, and he was a classics scholar, who taught English and Latin, in his teaching career, plus being a keen amateur gardener. My house has a proper front and back garden, no car port ( we never had a car ) and an orchard.

Can remember the old lift attendants counting people in, always wondered if they included themselves in the maximum number of people.

I used to think the stairs at Hampstead were hard going until recently visiting Doai station in Japan. 462 stairs and they are the only method of accessing the platform from the ticket hall!

I believe the shaft at North End/Bull and Bush is deeper - even if it was never fully commissioned. It was a proposed station between Hampstead and Golders Green. The platform is there in the dark just before you exit the tunnel to Golders Green.

With its history you could do a series of videos just about the Hampstead area

I used to commute to Hampstead in the 1970s to school. There were two automatic high speed lifts that left your stomach behind when they set off, and four slow manual lifts that were only operated in the rush hours - or when the automatic lifts had failed. The automatic lifts were always failing, and the emergency alarm had to be pressed to get someone in the ticket hall to open the control panel and bring the lift to the surface. What you don’t mention is that in the 70s the platform lighting was replaced - and fluorescent tubes installed. The old lampshades were very attractive, but the platforms were much darker than they are now. If a bulb went, it was replaced using something that looked like a drain plunger on a very long stick - and the rubber plunger end was used to unscrew the old bulb - and then to screw in a new one.

Interesting part of the world. You've got Ampstead Eaf, then there's Eyegate and Ornsey. A bit dahn there is Hislignton. If you apppen to be from sarf of the river.

Jago, you'll be pleased to hear geography is no barrier to being a tube nerd. Our daughter lives in Yorkshire and has just visited us in Surrey. Finding the coach down terminated at Finchley Road, she eschewed the convenience of the Jubilee line straight to Waterloo and instead walked to Hampstead to get the northern line so she could take the steps both ways just so she could say she'd done them, before descending again to get the tube. I pointed out Hampstead is the deepest measured surface to platform, but the Jubilee platforms at Westminster are the deepest measured sea level to platform. So going home by train, she takes the Jubilee from Waterloo via Westminster changing at Green Park for Kings Cross. So deepest tube stations by both measurements duly visited! She also throws down the gauntlet claiming 3 minutes 9 seconds for the climb wearing street clothes and a rucksack!

I know it should've been obvious, but no one man has been influencial the Underground more than Charles Tyson Yerkes.

One of my all time favourite tube stations.

I swear I hear Charles Tyson Yerkes name so much on this channel it's like a game of 'whack-a-fraud-mole' that is near endless. Love these videos, as always.

2:07 A moustache followed by a great Yerkes. I've no idea if there is a lesser one, but it sounds interesting anyway. Best keep your pets indoors. In one of these you tube worm holes I found a link to a site with a written piece on an underground signal cabin around Kings Cross. They were quite singular places to work in and would be worth a video. Could our Jago blag a visit to a site in a tunnel- pull some strings with bribery and a cunning disguise. Ah, Sundays. The long dark tea time of the soul. My mind wanders too much.

Hurrah! Charles Yerkes is back! I've missed him!

I love Hampstead and its tube station. The first time I visited London I managed to find some affordable accommodation in the area up Heath St. It was 1993…

2:12 Friend of the channel

If anyone's interested.. apparently, below sea-level, the deepest is Waterloo at 26m below, followed by Liverpool Street Elizabeth Line station at 23m below sea level.

Weather is very nice today, I am heading to there right now. See you 😂

Getting to Hampstead from East Finchley, I had three choices: (1) bus: the 102 to Golders Green then the 210 to Hampstead; (2) tube: down to Camden Town and back on the Edgware line to Hampstead or (3) riding my bike if I was in a running late.

Two memories of this station when I briefly lived in Hampstead Hill Gardens in 1970. The old wooden ("stand clear of the gates"!) lifts frequently out of service, and having to use the stairs. I had a double whammy once when the similarly venerable lifts at my daily destination, Goodge Street, were also unusable. Anothe, using the ticket office, requesting a ticket to Neasden, the clerk exclaimed: "nah, what d'you want to go there for. It's an 'orrible place!"

In the early 1920s Evelyn Waugh was an unknown Bright Young Person, still reluctantly living in his parents' villa at North End. He would walk down the hill to the Hampstead Tube, hiding pennies along the way. Returning he would check how many had been nicked. He would always post letters in Hampstead Village bc he considered North End's postmark, Golders Green, was vulgar.

I lived here back in the 80s, and recall the original pair of high speed lifts which are now long gone. They fairly hurled you to the surface, but as they slowed for the ticket hall, the negative G was enough to make you catch your breath, and really startle the unwary! Likewise, the downward plunge was not for anyone with spinal problems😬

When going from platform to street level in the lift you can feel your ears "pop" a little due to the difference in air pressure.

Surprisingly two stops south from the deepest lift shafts on the UndergrounD is the shortest at Chalk Farm. (61 feet to platform. ) I have worked there on the lifts and you could work on the bottom of one lift from the roof of the other with them both at the landings. If you missed a descending lift it was quicker to walk down the emergency stairs than wait for the next.

I do like these chats. Thank you.

Good stuff Jago. Any chance of coming up here to look at the world's oldest deep level stations, Liverpool James Street and Birkenhead Hamilton Square?

Took my children there last weekend. One of my favourite stations; a proper step back in time 💚🩷🧡

Great video as usual. I used this station a lot between 1973 and 1976 when I was at university nearby.

Thanks for another great in-depth video. So to speak.

I remember a scene in The Day the Earth Caught Fire where fire engines were rushing to a fire on Hampstead Heath passing the station which I believe was called Hampstead Heath station at the time.

It's a strange twist of fate that without Hampstead Tube and Yerkes' dodgy dealings, those titans of 20th century philosophy Derek and Clive would never have met.

Had North End (aka 'Bull and Bush') been completed, and not abandoned, then that would have been the deepest station on the tube. We have no drinkable alcohol in the house at the minute, so your mention of CTY meant that today, my liver was unscathed. 😆😆😆

Brilliant short video, one of your very best.

I lived in London in 2004; your videos take me back to that time, too much nostalgia. Thank you very much!

I was born in Hampstead some 60 years ago. I've never heard anyone call it a suburb! That name is reserved for Hampstead Garden suburb which is closer to Golders Green.

Great video once again. Plus a cheery drink for Charles Yerkes

Thanks for that, Jago. A fascinating video ,as usual!

I half-expected this to be sponsored by Jamiroquai.

Great video Jago

Your videos are the deep level station to my sub-surface station. Thanks xo

I knew it was going to be equivalent to a 15 story building. 4:22

A Horse Bus from Hampstead to Hendon (and especially Colindale!) would be useful this year!

don't forget in the 1970's some trains terminated at Hampstead. There is a crossover in one of the tunnels to facilitate this.

Its such a beautiful place to walk around. Be sure to have some drinks/eat at the Holly Bush pub.

Lovely video and story. Thanks again for this.

.." out of the depths of Underground history comes" . . . . Jago reaches a whole new level here

I'm surprised it's so deep at Hampstead considering the line then surfaces at the next station north that being Golders Green.

I love the announcment on the tube for this station as it always sounds like "Hamster Teeth" :)

Did you know that Charles Tyson Yerkees has a crater on the moon named after him?

The drainage objection is still in good use. It is currently being used against the Japanese maglev line and it was used to try to stop Stuttgart 21.

You’re videos are getting much deeper!

Loooooooong live, Sir. Jago Hazzard and his ‘Tales From Da Tube’.

Another in depth report by Jago.

Found myself letting out a cheer whenever Yerkes appeared on screen. He's literally your channel mascot at this point

might be worth mining the muesuem of london photos to see if there was a period when the external UndergrounD roundels carried the station name , as the stations on the south of the thames section of the northern line did c1962ish

I went to school in Hampstead and used the Tube station. Imagine those times when the lifts broke down.

The jubilee extension always seems to be deepest

On my first visit to Britain, 1977, I went to Hampstead by tube and got into the largest lift I'd ever encountered.

👍👍👍 great as usual.

I love that Charles Tyson Yerkes could go from platform to street in 320 steps: that's the same as a 15-storey building! I feel as though Charles Tyson Yerkes is the Dame Thora Hird to your Last of the Summer Wine, Jago.

4:33Do you mean that none of them was named Yerkosaurus? I think one of them ought to be now in the old fellow's honour

I know Hampstead station best. I lived in Golders Green for a few years near where I worked and it was the best place for a drink with about 25 pubs all in walking distance. I later moved to Highgate which also had a few good pubs but with a few exceptions like the Lamb and Flag (Covent Garden) it was the best area. I used to climb the stairs quite often as part of an exercise plan I had but rode the lifts with several "celebs" too.

I have had a strange illness of late, resulting in a red-tiled frontage in a shade of ox-blood. (I can send pictures if you like - my clinictian has some spare). I also checked and I have entrances on three different levels, but I thnk they have always been there but even out if I lie down sideways

The cream, green and ox-blood really do make an elegant palette.

Thanks Jago, this was indeed a nice tale. 😃

I loved Hampstead tube station and the village and most of all the heath. I lived in Belize park for many years and I would love to see that station featured at some stage in your wonderful tube ramblings. It was so often over looked, second deepest tube station, maybe viewed as not the most respectable suburb Hampstead was or as well connected as Swiss Cottage or Finchley Road, but it was a great place to live and I remember it very fondly.

I was standing at the entrance to Hampstead Tube Station many years ago waiting to meet my cousin. A beeping started up inside the concourse and i glanced in its direction to not that it was a fire alarm panel. As I was already at the entrance and it wasn't a full fire alarm anyway, I didn't move. People continued to go in amd out of the concourse without the slightest interest, then continued to do exactly the same when the full fire alarm started up with all the sirens and flashing red strobe lights. After it all stopped a few minutes later, I asked when had caused the activation and it turned out to have been someone burning toast in a staff kitchen underground somewhere. However, you do have to wonder if all those passengers strolling into the station even noticed the noise, let alone wondered if there was any action they ought to be taking.

There's nothing superficial about this investigation of Hampstead, nee Heath Street, Station. One might almost say it plumbs new depths but that would be an overly deep pun for a station built amongst the sunlit uplands.

Just like a good book, another good episode

Was thinking if West Hampstead were to have an underground subway linking all 3 stations without having to walk along West End Road in West Hampstead.

Walked those steps every day I worked there.....memories 😊

A most excellent episode, many thanks Jago. Beneath the Heath,

A great epdisode, Sir !

4:21 320 steps = 15 storey building!

Good one Jago 👍

4:26 I believe Jago is contractually prevented from mentioning the 15 storey building equivalence. Wouldn't want a nasty turf war with Geoff Marshall!

I do remember getting on the tube at Waterloo, and dang that escalator was long! Second, in my experience, only to the one I rode at the San Diego Zoo.