Swiss Cottage

 

The district is named after an inn called The Swiss Tavern that was built in 1804 in the style of a Swiss chalet and on the site of a former tollgate keeper's cottage. The inn was later renamed Swiss Cottage. The district formed part of the ancient parish of Hampstead. It developed following the Finchley Road Act 1826, which authorised construction of Finchley New Road and Avenue Road, with The Swiss Tavern built at the junction of the new roads. The Metropolitan Railway opened Swiss Cottage on 13 April 1868 as the northern terminus of a new branch line, the Metropolitan and St. John's Wood Railway. On 26 April 1868, two trains collided head-on at the station. This was the result of a signaller's error which caused an arriving train to be misrouted to the platform where a second train was stood awaiting departure. Three people were injured. The current station was opened on 20 November 1939 on a new section of deep-level tunnel constructed between Baker Street and Finchley Road stations when the Metropolitan line's services on its Stanmore branch were transferred to the Bakerloo line.

 

The new station initially operated as part of a combined station with the Metropolitan line's adjacent sub-surface Swiss Cottage station (platforms 1 and 2 were Metropolitan line and 3 and 4 were Bakerloo line), but the Metropolitan line station was closed on 17 August 1940. The Bakerloo line station was subsequently transferred along with the rest of the Stanmore branch to the Jubilee line when it opened on 1 May 1979. It is in Travelcard Zone 2 and located at the junction of Finchley Road, Avenue Road and College Crescent. The station has wi-fi, payphones, cash machines, Euro cash machines and escalators.

 

Connections: London Buses routes 13, 31, 46, 82, 113, 187, 268, 603 and C11 and night routes N13, N28, N31 and N113 serve the station.

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