Two historic images chart the development of Hampstead Underground station, which was constructed almost 120 years ago and remains the deepest on the London network.
The expansion of the Underground gave the then quiet village of Hampstead faster links with central London.
Improved access also encouraged residential growth towards Golders Green and further north.
Hampstead had long attracted visitors: people came from the 18th century to take its mineral waters, while working-class crowds gathered on the Heath during bank holidays in an outing nicknamed ‘appy ‘ampstead.
Both photographs are held by Burgh House in Hampstead.
One records the station site around 1900, while the other shows the completed station shortly before its opening by the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway on June 22 1907.
Located at the junction of Heath Street and Hampstead High Street, the station originally had the proposed name Heath Street.
Although that name was subsequently changed, the original tiled signs on the platform walls retain it.
Its platforms lie 58.5 metres, or 192 feet, beneath ground level, while the lift shaft extends 55 metres, or 180 feet.
This makes Hampstead the Underground’s deepest station.
Its spiral staircase contains 320 steps and is also the longest on the network.
The unusual depth results from Hampstead’s position on one of London’s highest hills rather than from a decision to construct the platforms at an excessive distance underground.
Plans for the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead route began in 1893, but construction was delayed for ten years.
American financier Charles Tyson Yerkes assumed control of the project in 1900 and altered the proposals to create an electric underground railway.
Because the station sits beneath a hill, the tunnels pass under it and lifts carry passengers between street and platform level.
Hampstead was among 50 Underground stations designed by Leslie Green between 1903 and 1907.
Its glazed oxblood terracotta tiles and semi-circular first-floor windows have since become an icon of London design.
The station now handles services on the Northern line’s Edgware branch between Golders Green and Belsize Park.
Lifts remain the principal means of reaching the platforms, with the spiral staircase available as an emergency alternative.
Signs nevertheless discourage its routine use because the climb is comparable to ascending a 15-storey building.
A further northern station was planned beneath Hampstead Heath under the name North End.
Land bought for development around the proposed stop instead became part of the Hampstead Heath extension.
Known as the Bull and Bush after the pub on North End, the station never opened to passengers and is now one of the Underground’s ghost stations.
Hampstead, by contrast, has continued operating at the network’s deepest point.