Jago Hazard, I am confused. I hated commuting to London. I loathed travelling on the tube. I have no interest in trains. I have little interest in history other than archaeology. So why I am addicted to your channel? Why does any new episode make me feel that all is right with the world and there is hope? Why do I get so positively excited when any Central Line station gets mentioned, and almost wet myself if it's at the eastern end? Why do I find your alliteration so hilarious? Why are your dreadful puns so equally amusing? I truly have no idea, and the idea that one day you'll have "done" the tube, come to the end... It almost gives me a panic attack.
I don't live in London. Or commute to London. I'm only travelling in London if going to an event or on a day trip. Yet I'm also addicted to Jago's channel.
@@TheNemocharlie I'm sure I've seen them both quoted elsewhere in the past. Jago is good enough at digging out obscure facts or fictions that I don't think he needs to invent any.
Ian, I know how strong Jago is on his facts, but he also has a wicked sense of humour! Besides, he's being kept honest by his gazillions of supporters who I would imagine are above average in their enthusiasm to bring to his attention any minor errors...
You are bang on! I was thinking exactly the same. He is the perfect Victorian villain, a cross between an ugly sister, the wicked witch of the north and Rackmann. As slippery as an eel. As cunning as Fagin. After shaking hands with him, you wouldn't be worried about counting your fingers, you'd just be relieved if you still had a hand.
Oh, Yerkes not so bad, I mean he had his hand in the till, but its not a crime, just a bit dodgy and only ripped off greedy investors on the skim, not the meat
4:15 "The proposed railway is laid out directly under a line of fine timber trees, and your petitioners fear that the vibration which the use of the railway would occasion, and the withdrawal and disturbance of water which would result from its construction, will have an injurious effect on this avenue and on the surface of the Heath elsewhere" - - Official complaint put forth by the Hampstead Heath Preservation Society "Just see what an absurd thing! Disturbance of the water when we are 240 feet beneath the London clay - about the most impervious thing you can possibly find; almost more impervious than granite rock! And the vibration on this railway is to shake down the timber trees?! Could anything be more ludicrous than to wast the time of the Committee in discussing such things presented by such a body?!" - - The Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway's official response (Yes, those are the actual word-for-word real-life historical quotes)
"DeLancey Louderback" would not be at all out of place as the name of either victim or murderer in an Agatha Christie novel. He would probably be the sixth Earl of Louderback, and the crime would take place at Louderback Hall in Kent.
As a kid in the 50’s and relatively a local, it was always ‘High-get’, never ‘High-gate’. Same for Ludgate and Bishopsgate - but never for Moorgate or Aldgate.
English shares with French that orthography (the way you write a word) has very little to do with phonology (how you pronounce a word). It differs from French because French is consistent, and English isn't.
Well, that's just the usual in English, any vowel after the stress has a tendency to be reduced (as we linguists call it) to a dull schwa vowel /ə/. At least we can be grateful that it's still got the hard Norse /g/ in the "gate" - if it had shown an Old-Engishs tyle /j/ you'd get the same problem as Chopgate "chop-yat" /t͡ʃɔpjat/ in Yorkshire and you'd end up with something sounding like "height".
I wonder if the pronunciation of -gate as -get is a regional thing. My town has 6 or 7 streets in the town centre whose name ends in - gate and are pronounced as such.
@@adscri I've read that London had a bunch of different accents in the 19th century. Specifically, I read it in Real Life In London, published 1824 when it was a bit harder to travel to London. (The book mentions Kings Cross as a very busy coach station.) Its full of surprises, including a statement to the effect that the accent commonly called Australian is (was!) in fact that of a certain district of London. I forget which district, it might have been Whitehall.
Years ago I watched a documentary about the late and great Richard Burton and for a short time he taught drama at Oxford university and he would often invite his students to his rooms of an evening to read the classics to them and one of his students said in the documentary that Burton “had an enthralling voice that was so wonderful to hear that it didn’t matter what he was reading, he could have read the yellow pages and you would have been entertained”. The reason I mentioned this is because Jago is the same, I don’t mean he sounds like Richard Burton, but rather I could listen to him talk all day. So know I’m wondering if it would be possible for Jago to read the yellow pages but more importantly if he could read the lines from the 1977 Jeff Wayne musical War Of The Worlds so we could dub Jago over Richard Burton’s lines, just for a bit of fun. 🤔🤔🤔🤔
Oh dear... I haven't thought about that album in years. I'm sure we could find something better for Jago to narrate than that--more Tales from the Tube, for example. All the same, a video on Horsell Common and other real-life sci-fi locations might be interesting.
Another train commentator on RU-vid also has one of those special voices - have a listen here ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Rs4oNLiB0vw.html
I once got put up in the Refectory across the road from Golders Green Tube station, when sitting on my bed after coming out of the shower I looked in the mirror I realised I could see straight into a train at the tube station, then the couple looked away. 😲😲
Everytime I hear 'Hampstead Tube', I always hear in my head, the skit "In the Lav" by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore (as Derek and Clive)...where it begins, "I was down Hampstead Tube, in the lav, there..."
It wasn't station staff who operated the gates at the car ends - it was "gatemen", who travelled on the trains. There was one at one end of each car (who operated that gate, and the adjacent one on the next car). I _think_ one of the gatemen also acted as guard for the whole train. So, for example, a five-car train required five traincrew - a driver, plus four gatemen (one at the leading ends of cars 2, 3, 4, and 5). Very inefficient in terms of staff. The introduction of air-worked sliding doors a decade or so later (allowing a crew of just two - a driver and a guard - to work a multi-car train) reduced staffing requirements considerably.
Another entertaining video, Mr Hazzard. 2:47 I'd be obliged if, when citing any mischief that Mr Yerkes instigates, you refer to it as "shady shenanigans" since it has a nice alliterative sound. I also agree with other posters that an "evil theme" is needed for this gentleman.
The last time I visited London was in September 2017, but every time you post a video, I feel like I am visiting again briefly. I'd like to visit again once the current madness stops.
Christmas Day family dinner and festivities in Chiswick in 2019,nearly six months after my previous venture into the capital. That branch of the family's previous house was just a short walk from Turn 'Em Green station.
GATE in place names comes from one of two sources. The obvious one is that there was a gate in a wall. The other source is the Danish/Norse word GATA which means street or road. So, saying Highgat takes the name back the era of the Vikings.
Although the name of Highgate is from a gate in a fence surrounded a deer park. Gate meaning street is only really found in the former Danelaw, most famously the streets of York.
@@luxford60 the Danelaw did reach the London area. And Cnut the Great ruled all of England in the 11th Century. Didn't know about the Bishop's deer park.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 the boundary was the River Lea, though obviously the Danish pressed much further West before being beaten back and that boundary being established.
A suggestion for a future video after seeing this one mention Lots Road power station ... How about 'Where Did The Underground Get Its Electricity From ?'. I'd find it interesting ... . . .
I arrived in London in 1961 and found the Underground THE most fascinating mode of transport. My first experience was Notting Hill to Shepherds Bush. Apart from the interesting escalator rides in the time of mini-skirts, I remember when they first went from smoking everywhere (sitting in a smoke filled cinema) to some restrictions where you had only two dedicated smoking carriages, (2 and 7). I left England in 1982 and the Underground had just become completely smoke free. They had even begun to wash the platforms clean. So advanced!
There has been some talk recently of separating the two Northern Lines. So maybe there is a chance of renaming one of them. One idea might be to keep the Northern Line name for the High Barnet/Bank/Morden line and using the 'Hampstead Line' for the Edgware/Charing X/Battersea line, or even something new like the 'Trafalgar Line' as it passes by the famous square.
If I had to guess, in an alternate reality where TfL has the money to upgrade Camden Town, I think they will just keep it as the Northern Line. On the map the line at Camden will be separated to the two branches like in Euston and both will be black and named the northern line. And a decade later the mayor of London will insist that the separated lines will have different names and it won’t happen. Like the overground. And make the circle a circle again
The Morden route could become The Southern Line as ironically it's the tube line that goes further south but not furthest north. I think furthest north is Chesham, just beating Epping (North Weald and Blake Hall would have pipped it though, as in the mists of time did Aylesbury and Verney Junction). Chesham also looks to be furthest west, by a fraction from Amersham, and Upminster furthest east.
Unfortunately, English tradition dictates that if a name has been in common use for at least 40 years, then it cannot be simply changed without a huge outcry from Traditionalists, which then forces the Government of the day to intervene. Thems the rules.
I suggest _"Northern LIne"_ for Battersea-Charing X- High Barnet and _"Southern Line"_ for Morden-Bank-Edgware, because those go furthest North and South respectively. It always was an anomaly that Morden is on the Northern Line.
This might be an interesting video you could do, did you know that On the Clogher Valley Railway at Fivemiletown, in Ireland, a lady called Maggie Coulter had a goat and it frequently stood on the track blocking the path of trains oblivious to shouts from the Loco Crew, until hot coals were thrown at it. The uncharitable Maggie Coulter would let it stand until the fireman had thrown enough coal to do her fire.
Another fine tale of the tube.- How about one on the remains of the trams/trolley bus network that still remains in London,if only as an excuse for you to get more B roll footage ?!
A nice, precise history of the Hampstead Line! I also like that you filmed most (if not all) of this in warm weather, with lots of greenery and people in warm weather clothing. There is hope we'll get through winter!
Golders Green actually makes far more sense than Hampstead operationally as a tube terminus because it is above ground; plenty of space for sidings, carriage sheds etc at far lower cost than if in tunnel. Maybe Yerkes bringing his operational know-how to bear as well as property speculation. Two surprises for me; the first was that the Embankment extension made such a huge difference to ridership (connectivity!) and the second that the Waterloo extension only came in the 1920s - I can't imagine Waterloo without it, although one could use the Bakerloo prior to that and change at Trafalgar Square (initially) or Embankment. The Archway to Highgate extension was presumably refused due to opposition from the Great Northern who wanted to keep their Finchley/High Barnet traffic. Nice to see Yerkes back again and it conjures up the usual thought; he was dodgy financially but he got the lines built, even if it was his successors who had the tough task of improving them to make them actually pay.
Wrote _"Maybe Yerkes bringing his operational know-how to bear as well as property speculation."_ You don't need Yerkes' operational know-how to realise it is cheaper to build a depot in the open rather than under the ground, just a brain cell or two.
@@dukenukem5768 The less obvious bit is realising it's worth building 2 miles of extra tunnel to achieve this and give potential for future extension, rather than stabling the trains back down the line somewhere.
@@iankemp1131 Right. They maybe could have built a depot in the Chalk Farm area next to the LNWR depots, although the access would need an incline to ground level like Northumberland Park depot. Belsize Park and Hampstead stations served existing housing, but Bull and Bush was built in the hope/expectation of new housing on Hampstead Heath, which did not materialise. So you could say that Yerkes mis-judged it there, but having got that far you might as well push through to Golders Green with (then) empty fields to site your depot and with sure prospects of future housing.
Hmmm... Mentioning it directly after Warren Street would be invalid under Lord Nesborough's variation, and result in him being placed "in Nidd" for the next three turns
An interesting perambulation through the Warrens of a much extended and merged railway. The story telling is Streets ahead of many others reaching Heights undreamt of by lesser racontuers.
I really do enjoy your videos, they teach me what I didn’t know but am interested in (even when I don’t realise it) and all delivered at the perfect pace and with great enthusiasm
Thanks Jago - great video. Thoroughly researched and well presented. A joy to listen to. 👏🏾👏🏾 Will have to listen to this again in order to digest the facts. 👍🏾👍🏾
It was indeed she who encountered moustache twirling Yerkes on a trans Atlantic crossing, and was horrified by his ambitions of progress and electrification.
I wish someone had told me that Hampstead Underground Station doesnt have stairs and only a lift as I have a massive phobia of lifts! Same with Euston Square Underground Station as well!
Archway (originally named Highgate) used to have a Leslie Green station building on Junction Road. I remember waiting outside it many a time as a wee kid after visiting my grandma, asking why we couldn't catch the Tube home (we lived near Bounds Green) instead of a boring old 41 bus. This was before I'd ever seen a Tube map. Sadly the Green station was demolished around 1970, to eventually make way for the present tower block. For a few years the vacant site was partially occupied by a peculiar polygonal structure in brown stone, but despite numerous efforts I've never been able to track down a picture of it.
Many Thanks, as usual, for your videos Jago. They help calm our morning routine at breakfast without the intrusion of the madness of current emergencies and politics.
I love the artwork from the thumbnail, would love a video exploring artwork, posters, ads/media for the tube across the ages could make a good video or two!
I have noticed with our country train service VLine in Victoria Australia with every VLine train station the town is built around the train station and not the high way
I wish you had mentioned the 'lost' North End station between Hampstead and Golders Green. It would have been very convenient for visiting the famous Bull & Bush pub instead of the steep uphill walks from either Hampstead or Golders Green stations.
Excellent - but my usual plea - more maps! I know this history pretty well as an Underground nerd of some vintage, but still got confused. Brief cutaways to explanatory maps would have been very welcome. As it was, I had to watch it a second time with a tube map open in another window! Also, a mention of the planned, but never completed, link between Finchley and Edgeware (?) would have been nice. I know Jay covers this in one of his videos, but it would have fitted in nicey here too.
Stations that serve Hampstead. West Hampstead (Jubilee Line) West Hampstead Thameslink West Hampstead (London Overground North London Line) South Hampstead (London Overground Euston-Watford DC Line) Hampstead (Northern Line) Hampstead Heath (London Overground North London Line) But is there a tube station or railway station that serves North Hampstead and East Hampstead. Or does North Hampstead and East Hampstead not exist.
The second story of Charles Yerkes deciding on the terminus slightly reminds a legend about Emperor Constantine the Great planning the extent of his New Rome. His officials were showing him a prospective course of the wall that would enclose what had been the city of Byzantium. But the emperor led them much further and ordered to enclose a very large area of rural land, estimating a potential size of the new imperial capital.
Woo, you filmed where I live (Golders Green)! Northern Line is quite a dull name really, and not that massively descriptive seeing that the ex C&SL part in particular is very much south of the river.
@Jago Hazzard Have you ever seen the little brown or black mice that live amongst the Tube tracks? My wife, mother in law and I once spent 3 days in London and we saw them a few times when we travelled around on the Tube.
Is there not a specific breed of rodent, found only on the tube? I'm sure I read something about that. Pretty sure there's a flea, or similar, only found down there too.
@@2H80vids There are two species of moth exclusive to the tube, one mostly black, one mostly white. They've bred down there. (I don't know why they're classed as species rather than subspecies.) I don't know about mice, but I'd almost be surprised if there wasn't a specific breed in the tube.
Actually, the tram depot was initially called Holloway - and stayed that way when the trolleybuses arrived. But it was renamed to Highgate in 1950 (when LT merged their tram & trolleybus department with their red bus department), because there was already a bus garage called Holloway. After that other garage closed in the early 70s, the former tram depot regained the Holloway name. You can still see a remnant of the period that it was called Highgate, though. It was allocated the garage code HT, which it retained even after its name reverted to Holloway. You can still see that code painted on the side of buses running out of Holloway garage.
@4:15 "the residents" had a good point that the Tube could change the character of Hampstead Heath - Yerkes would have loved seeing houses built all over it. As it was the Tube was built under it anyway and there ensued a fight to stop such houses being built anyway. Fortunately "the residents" won that fight.
Although the connections to Mornington Crescent do include the popular inverted diagonal interchange, is there any truth to the idea that this was first popularised (and subsequently integrated into the game 'Mornington Crescent') by Sir Charles Yerkes, resulting in the Tyson Variation to the rules?
I thought you might have mentioned that Hampstead station is the deepest station on the London Underground and that there is a spiral staircase of 320 steps going down to the platform. It was also heavily bombed during WW2
I've always though of the Northern Line as four people trying to wear the same coat. They'd have been better off and far more less confusingly entitling them the City and South and Hampstead Lines with each running its own side of the city split. As it stands its another of those 'why wasnt that sorted?' elements of the tube.
