Kilburn Park

 

Kilburn Park was opened on 31 January 1915 as the temporary terminus of the Bakerloo line's extension from Paddington station towards Queen's Park. Services were extended to Queen's Park on 11 February 1915.[3] At the extension's opening, Maida Vale station was not complete and the previous station was Warwick Avenue until 6 June 1915. The station building was designed by Stanley Heaps in a modified version of the earlier Leslie Green designed Bakerloo line stations with glazed terra cotta façades but without the large semi-circular windows at first floor level. It was one of the first London Underground stations built specifically to use escalators rather than lifts. It is Grade II listed.

 

Kilburn grew up on the banks of a stream which has been known variously as Cuneburna, Kelebourne and Cyebourne, which flows from Hampstead down through Hyde Park and into the River Thames. It is suggested the name means either Royal River or Cattle River ('Bourne' being an Anglo-Saxon word for 'river'). The river is known today as the River Westbourne. From the 1850s it was piped underground and is now one of London's many underground rivers. The fashion for taking 'medicinal waters' in the 18th century came to Kilburn when a well of chalybeate waters (water impregnated with iron) was discovered near the Bell Inn in 1714. In an attempt to compete with the nearby Hampstead Well, gardens and a 'great room' were opened to promote the well, and its waters were promoted in journals of the day as cure for 'stomach ailments'. The station has payphones and escalators.

 

Connections: London Overground (at Kilburn High Rd. Station). Bus routes 31, 32, 206, 316, 328, school route 632 and night routes N28 and N31 serve the station.

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