File:Arsenal Underground Station, 6 April 2023 DSC 0125.jpg

English: Arsenal Underground Station, 6 April 2023. Built by the Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway in December 1906 (by then part of the Underground Electric Railways of London, and eventually becoming the Piccadilly Line of the London Passenger Transport Board) as Gillespie Road in a quiet residential street, it’s usage dramatically increased in 1913 when Arsenal Football Club (founded by munition workers in the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich) relocated from Woolwich to nearby Highbury.

Gillespie Road was belatedly renamed Arsenal in 1932 – the only tube station to be named after a football club. However, the station was too small to cope so in the 1930’s the station building was greatly enlarged by the purchasing the adjacent terraced house, demolishing the original rather fine Leslie Green designed station building and replacing it by the present rather undistinguished one (I haven’t been able to find any reference to an architect who owned up to designing it!).

The station is unique in that there are neither escalators nor lifts from the concourse to the platforms but rather long, steep, pedestrian tunnels – one being divided by bars to keep football fans away from the public using the trains at the same time as a football game! The space left for ordinary passengers is very narrow indeed.

Pictured is the pedestrian tunnel from the platform divided by bars - football fans on the left, ordinary passengers on the right, the latter having a very narrow space indeed.