Clapham South Underground Station

Clapham South is a station on London Underground's Northern line between Clapham Common and Balham. The station is located at the corner of Balham Hill (A24) and Nightingale Lane. It is in both Travelcard Zone 2 and Travelcard Zone 3.

History

The station was designed by Charles Holden and was opened on 13 September 1926 as the first station of the Morden extension of the City & South London Railway, which is now part of the Northern line. Other proposed names for the station prior to opening were "Balham North" and "Nightingale Lane".

The apartments above the station, named Westbury Court, were a later addition to the architecture, built in the mid-1930s. The parade of shops along Balham Hill was extended as part of the same development using the same style as the original three closest to the station.

Clapham South tube station is at the southern edge of Clapham Common.

It is one of eight London Underground stations with a deep-level air-raid shelter underneath it. In 1948, the deep shelter was used as temporary accommodation for immigrants from the West Indies. The HMT  Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury in 1948 carrying 492 immigrants. London had a severe labour shortage after the war and the Colonial Office had sought to recruit a labour force from Jamaica. An advertisement had appeared in Jamaica's Daily Gleaner on 13 April 1948 offering transport to the UK. The Windrush was quickly filled. As there was no accommodation for all of the new arrivals, the Colonial Office housed many of them temporarily in the deep-level shelter at Clapham South. The underground shelter opened its doors to the public in 2016.

Text imported from Wikipedia article "Clapham South tube station" and modified on 23 July 2019 under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.