Here's a map showing the route of the "District Railway" through Westminster. Built in 1868 as a steam operated railway it originally used the "cut & cover" approach to construction, i.e. a trench was "cut" into the ground and then, once the railway had been built, covered over again. This method wasn't great as it didn't result in deep tunnels and often undermined surrounding building's foundations, later technology allowed tunnel boring to occur leading to much deeper (and safer) tunnels.
If you walk to one end of the now "District and Circle" platform at Westminster station you can still see some of the original Victorian brickwork and interestingly there's a black band at the bottom of the wall indicating that the platform depth was lowered below that of the original. Some of these original bricks can be seen stacked up in this old photograph of the cut and cover works..
No comments:
Post a Comment