File:Boston Manor Underground Station (Piccadilly Line) - 52824562792.jpg

English: Boston Manor Underground Station, 6 April 2023. The original station was opened in May 1883 on the Metropolitan District Railway’s extension from Mill Hill Park (now Acton Town) to Hounslow Town. It was named Boston Road but renamed Boston Manor in 1911. In 1932-34 the station was rebuilt by the Underground Electric Railways of London for the extension of Piccadilly Railway services which began running there in January 1933 when the station opened but before it was completed in March 1934. District Line services ceased serving Boston Manor in October 1964.

Frank Pick, the Managing Director of the UERL, gave the responsibility of designing the new stations on the Acton Town – Hounslow extension to his favoured architectural consultant, Charles Holden, rather than the UERL’s own Chief Architect, Stanley Heaps.

Despite this awkward situation, the two architects, to their credit, worked well together and Heaps often acted as site advisor on the construction of Holden’s stations and was sometimes given the responsibility of designing the details, as long as he followed Holden’s Modernist principles. However, in the case of Boston Manor, Holden went further and delegated the design to Heaps, but again, following ‘Holdenesque’ principles – which Heaps accomplished magnificently in this case. Interestingly, although the station building was rebuilt, the platforms were not and thus they remain in their 1883 condition.

Pictured is the Metropolitan District Railway signal box.