please empty your brain below
It’s only just gone 7am and thanks to today’s post I’ve already found out the reason why a DLR station was named after an island 2000 miles away. Of course it wasn’t, it was named after the area of east London, named a century before, after an island 2000 miles away. Step back Cyprus.

Thanks as always DG.

BD | 23.01.21 - 7:14 a.m. | #

One of the oddities of Queen’s Road is that Queen’s Road isn’t even a special road. It’s not a shopping street or even one of the main roads in Walthamstow. Why name the station after that particular road? It feels so arbitrary. At least Kew Gardens, Harrow-on-the-Hill, Brent Cross, etc, are local landmarks.

Thomas | Homepage | 23.01.21 - 7:21 a.m. | #

Presumably Walthamstow Queen's Rd is so called because Queen's Rd Cemetery is the nearest landmark. A one-word addition to the name would transform its appropriateness in one fell swoop!

ps if this was broadened to include closed BR stations in London, Selsdon would stand a good chance of a high placing.

Betterbee | 23.01.21 - 7:25 a.m. | #

And perhaps Bond St should get a special mention, being roughly 15km from the the nearest London street with that name.

Betterbee | 23.01.21 - 7:34 a.m. | #

Thing. Moved. Arsenal. Latimer Road.

Malcolm of Kent | 23.01.21 - 7:48 a.m. | #

I'm guessing you have a spreadsheet of stations already created that can be repurposed for various analyses? I wonder what other spreadsheets you have ...

Sarah | Homepage | 23.01.21 - 7:54 a.m. | #

Morning! I immediately assumed Arnos Grove would be somewhere on the list, the station being on the other side of Arnos Park from the street, but I guess you've discounted it for some reason. Although maybe the street came after the station.

Dx

Dan | Homepage | 23.01.21 - 8:13 a.m. | #

London Road station in Brighton is a fair distance (~500m) from London Road, it's quite a daft name for the station really.

Westerleigh Junction | 23.01.21 - 8:14 a.m. | #

I used to work in Chiswick and it was very hard to shake the idea that Chiswick Common was in fact Turnham Green. I imagine most passers-through wouldn't give it a second thought.

daveid76 | 23.01.21 - 8:15 a.m. | #

abbey road!!

(I know)

Joris Gillet | Homepage | 23.01.21 - 8:32 a.m. | #

I have always found it odd that Queensway Station is on the corner with Bayswater Road, yet Bayswater Station is halfway down Queensway.

Cindy | 23.01.21 - 8:33 a.m. | #

What's the station that's nearest to, but not actually on/in the place it's named after?

I ask because Arsenal station never felt that far away from the stadium. It often felt as if the station entrance was closer to the ground than it was to the platforms

Ian | 23.01.21 - 8:33 a.m. | #

I also wondered why Arnos Grove station doesn't feature, as the station appears to be over 600m from Arnos Grove (the road) by the shortest route - via Arnos Road, then across Arnos Park.

Frank F | 23.01.21 - 8:38 a.m. | #

Arnos Grove station is named after the historic Arnos Grove estate, which used to be adjacent, not Arnos Grove the street which was added a few years after the station was built.

(it would have been in 4th place otherwise)

diamond geezer | Homepage | 23.01.21 - 8:45 a.m. | #

And that is pro-level geographic analysis - not just doing all the collating and measuring, but also checking what the station was actually named after rather than what you thought it was named after. This is one of the reasons we come back :-)

Jimbo | 23.01.21 - 9:47 a.m. | #

Very interesting.
You make me interested in things I would never have thought to be curious about!

Cornish Cockney | 23.01.21 - 9:55 a.m. | #

I’m sure you’ve got a good reason but Waterloo is named after a location in Belgium.

Bryn Davies | 23.01.21 - 10:16 a.m. | #

Glad you mentioned Shoreditch High Street as I don't understand why they added two extra (wrong) words to the stations either side which it replaced.

Arsenal is named after a buiding in Woolwich, miles away on the other side of the river.

kev | 23.01.21 - 10:36 a.m. | #

Waterloo Station is always said to have been named after Waterloo Bridge. The bridge is indeed a long way from what it's named after.

Since I pop in to the ex-Harrow School of the Arts on occasion, Harrow immediately came to mind. It's a pretty safe assumption that - railways working the way that they do - any "Hill" on "on the Hill" is going to be some distance from the station.

Chz | 23.01.21 - 11:02 a.m. | #

Wanstead Park Overground station is quite close to Wanstead Flats, but the actual park must be a mile away.

SteveR | 23.01.21 - 11:33 a.m. | #

No mention of Clapham Junction.

cau1khead | 23.01.21 - 11:39 a.m. | #

The original entrance to Chancery Lane station was indeed at the junction of that street with High Holborn. The entrance moved to the junction of Grays Inn Road, High Holborn and Holborn itself, when escalators (which slope) replaced lifts (which go straight down)

Chancery Lane is in fact the only station on Holborn itself. The so-called Holborn station is at the junction of Kingsway with High Holborn, about 500 metres away from the nearest point of Holborn itself.

Noting your criterion for Bow Church, St Pauls station is about 200 metres from the cathedral's main entrance.

timbo | 23.01.21 - 11:52 a.m. | #

I imagine you've not included it as it's the "general" area, but the Jubilee Line station Kilburn is a long way from Kilburn really. It's 1400m between Kilburn station and Kilburn High Road station, and on the way you pass by the more accurately named Overground station Brondesbury.

Mikey C | 23.01.21 - 12:05 p.m. | #

Wanstead Park station is indeed a mile from Wanstead Park (and just over 200m from Wanstead Flats).

Post updated, thanks.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 23.01.21 - 1:58 p.m. | #

"Arsenal is named after a buiding in Woolwich, miles away on the other side of the river."

No it isn't. The football team is, yes, but the station is named after the football team and that happened after they relocated to Highbury

Al__S | 23.01.21 - 2:03 p.m. | #

If you take the Richmond bound platform at Kew Gardens it adds another 50m to your walk via the subway and street the other side. That would move it up one or two places.

Clapham Junction maybe should be in your list. But that qualifies for the longest walk to the loos from the Overground end of the station.

davews | 23.01.21 - 3:44 p.m. | #

OK. But how far is the station from Waterloo Bridge?

Bryn Davies | 23.01.21 - 5:40 p.m. | #

What is your analysis on Sudbury Hill? I put the station about 650m from the hill after which it seems to have been named, or at least the stretch of the main road between Harrow and London that is called "Sudbury Hill". Maybe the hill had already given its name to the area before the station was put there.

Ian | 23.01.21 - 5:50 p.m. | #

Don’t forget Knockholt station, 5000m from the village and 2000m from the nearest point in the parish.

Sprout Eater | 23.01.21 - 6:32 p.m. | #

Nice to see Upminster Bridge get a mention. As a kid I always thought the railway bridge was, err, ‘it’ - I was a teenager before I worked out the underwhelming truth, made more so when the council chopped off nearly all of the cast iron bits.

mark addy | 23.01.21 - 7:55 p.m. | #

A lot further afield, but Dent Station on the Settle-Carlisle Line is famously remote from Dent Village ... by approx 4.5 miles.

Putters | 23.01.21 - 8:23 p.m. | #

Ps to that last column, I'm slightly surprised that you, with your interest in transport, rail, history and visiting everywhere, appear to have not done Settle-Carlisle (based on your blog search function, including the post "Places I've been"

Maybe begs the question "What is in the middle of the largest area of the country you haven't been to"?

dg writes: answered

Mark Waterton | 23.01.21 - 8:39 p.m. | #

Peckham Rye station is (according to Google Maps) a 640m walk from the very northern tip of Peckham Rye (the common) itself

James | 24.01.21 - 10:08 a.m. | #

Always amuses me that London Transport renamed Brent station for the shopping centre, yet the website of the latter advises customers arriving by tube to use Hendon Central.

Marc | 24.01.21 - 10:08 a.m. | #

Turnham Green should have been called Turnham Clean... its closer and therefore more cultural significance

Bruce Wayne | 24.01.21 - 12:43 p.m. | #

I had no idea The Porchester was the former Royal Oak! I spent time in both as a student in the 90s.

Kirsty | 24.01.21 - 8:23 p.m. | #

Apropos the Dent anecdote, it was said that some Southerner arrived in Dent panting from the walk from the station. On enquiring why the station was so far from the village, he received the laconic reply: " 'appen they wanted it near 't railway lines".

However, this pales into insignificance against the former Lampeter Road station (now Llanwrda) which was the small matter of 15 miles from Lampeter.

David | 25.01.21 - 2:00 p.m. | #

I have a difficult time imagining how Putney Bridge the station could be located much closer to Putney Bridge the bridge than it presently is.

Josh | 25.01.21 - 4:21 p.m. | #

No Euston, named after Euston Hall in Suffolk.

the orange one | 04.02.21 - 1:29 p.m. | #











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