Aldgate tube station

The route first proposed ran south from {{stn|Moorgate}} to {{stn|Cannon Street}}, but this was soon amended to the present alignment to allow connection with three additional termini: Liverpool Street, {{rws|Broad Street|London}}, and {{rws|Fenchurch Street}}.[http://www.davros.org/rail/culg/circle.html Clive's Underground Line Guides – Circle line] However, this change also forced an awkward doubling-back at Aldgate, reducing the desirability of the line for local traffic and greatly increasing the cost of construction due to high prices in the City of London. Construction was also delayed because the station was on the site of a plague pit behind St Botolph's Aldgate which contains an estimated 1,000 bodies.{{cite news| url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/58250755/the-boston-globe/| title=London Plague Pit| newspaper=The Boston Globe| date=26 July 1920| page=8| via=Newspapers.com}} {{open access}}{{cite web| url=https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/LondonPlaguePits/| title=The Reputed Plague Pits of London| first=Ben| last=Johnson| website=Historic UK| access-date=29 August 2020}}{{cite web| url=https://archives.history.ac.uk/history-in-focus/Medical/epiharding.html| title=Burial of the Plague Dead in Early Modern London| first=Vanessa| last=Harding| website=History In Focus| publisher=Institute of Historical Research| date=Spring 2001| access-date=29 August 2020}}

Aldgate station was opened on 18 November 1876, with a southbound extension to Tower Hill opening on 25 September 1882, completing the Circle (line). Services from Aldgate originally ran further west than they do now, reaching as far as Richmond.

The train shed of 1876 survives, hidden from the street by the later station frontage building erected in 1926. This was designed by Charles Walter Clark the Metropolitan Railway's chief architect between 1911 and 1933.{{#tag:ref|Clark designed other station buildings for the Metropolitan Railway in this period to a similar design faced in the same white faïence such as Farringdon (1922 – Grade II listed), Edgware Road (1928) and Willesden Green (1925 – Grade II listed), the Grade II* listed Baker Street station and the Chiltern Court apartment building that rises above it (completed in 1929). He also designed outer suburban stations on the line to Stanmore (1932).|group="n"}}

The station building has a six-bay façade clad in white faïence with original features including 1920s shopfronts with green marble and pink granite stallrisers, a half-hexagonal canopy of glass and metal suspended by elegant metal ties, leaded light first floor windows, dentil cornice, two ornamental lamp brackets and a frieze bearing moulded lettering and the Metropolitan Railway monogram.

Aldgate became the terminus of the Metropolitan line in 1941. Before that, Metropolitan trains had continued on to the southern termini of the East London Line.

In 2005, one of four suicide bombers involved in the 7 July terrorist attacks detonated a device on a C-stock Circle line train from Liverpool Street as it was approaching Aldgate.{{cite news |url= https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jul/14/july7.uksecurity6 |title= Trophy-rich athlete who turned to jihad |work=The Guardian |location= London |author1= Laville, Sandra |author2= Aslam, Dilpazier |date=14 July 2005 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100523112358/http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jul/14/july7.uksecurity6 |archive-date=23 May 2010 |url-status=live}} Seven passengers were killed in the bombing. Of the stations affected by the bombings, Aldgate was the first to be reopened, once police had handed back control of the site to London Underground following an extensive search for evidence. After the damaged tunnel was repaired by Metronet engineers, the lines were reopened. This allowed the Metropolitan line to be fully restored, since the closure had meant all trains had to be terminated two stations early, at Moorgate.[http://www.davros.org/rail/culg/metropolitan.html Clive's Underground Line Guides – Metropolitan line]

On the Circle line, Aldgate station is between Liverpool Street to the west and Tower Hill to the east. The typical off-peak service measured in trains per hour (tph) is:

• 6 tph clockwise to Edgware Road via {{lus|Embankment}};{{cite web |url=https://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube/timetable/circle?FromId=940GZZLUALD&ToId=940GZZLUTWH&SelectedTime=5 |title=Circle line timetable: From Aldgate Underground Station to Tower Hill Underground Station |website= Transport for London |access-date=28 March 2015}}
• 6 tph anti-clockwise to Hammersmith via {{lus|King's Cross St. Pancras}}.{{cite web |url=https://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube/timetable/circle?FromId=940GZZLUALD&ToId=940GZZLULVT&SelectedTime=5 |title=Circle line timetable: From Aldgate Underground Station to Liverpool Street Underground Station |website= Transport for London |access-date=28 March 2015}}

Aldgate station is the eastern terminus of the Metropolitan line and the next station is Liverpool Street to the west. The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is:

• 2 tph northbound to {{stn|Amersham}};{{cite web |url=https://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube/timetable/metropolitan?FromId=940GZZLUALD&ToId=940GZZLULVT&SelectedTime=6 |title=Metropolitan line timetable: From Aldgate Underground Station to Liverpool Street Underground Station |website= Transport for London |access-date=28 March 2015}}
• 2 tph northbound to {{lus|Chesham}};
• 8 tph northbound to {{lus|Uxbridge}}.
• 12 tph terminating at Aldgate

During peak hours there are also additional fast and semi-fast Metropolitan line services, with some following the route to and from {{lus|Watford}}.

{{Adjacent stations|system=London Underground

|line1=Circle|left1=Liverpool Street|right1=Tower Hill|type1=section 2

|line2=Metropolitan|left2=Liverpool Street

|header3=Former services

|system4=London Underground

|line4=Circle|left4=Liverpool Street|right4=Mark Lane|type4=section 2|note-mid4=(1884–1967)

|to-left4=Edgware Road via King's Cross St Pancras|

}}

London Buses day and night routes serve the station.{{Cite web|url=https://content.tfl.gov.uk/bus-route-maps/aldgate-and-fenchurch-street-a4-0722.pdf|title=Buses from Aldgate and Fenchurch Street|date=July 2022|website=TfL|access-date=3 June 2021}}{{Cite web|url=https://content.tfl.gov.uk/bus-route-maps/aldgate-and-fenchurch-street-night-a4-0321.pdf|title=Night buses from Aldgate and Fenchurch Street|date=March 2021|website=TfL|access-date=3 June 2021|archive-date=3 June 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210603113211/https://content.tfl.gov.uk/bus-route-maps/aldgate-and-fenchurch-street-night-a4-0321.pdf|url-status=dead}}

{{unreferenced section|date=March 2015}}

Aldgate station plays a role in the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans (published in the anthology His Last Bow).

In the story, the body of a junior clerk named Cadogan West is found on the tracks outside Aldgate, with a number of stolen plans for the Bruce-Partington submarine in his pocket. It seems clear enough that "the man, dead or alive, either fell or was precipitated from a train." But why, wonders Holmes, did the dead man not have a ticket? It turns out that the body was placed on top of a train carriage before it reached Aldgate, via a window in a house on a cutting overlooking the Metropolitan line. Holmes realises that the body fell off the carriage roof only when the train was jolted by the dense concentration of points at Aldgate.

Aldgate is also mentioned in John Creasey's 1955 detective novel Gideon's Day. It has also appeared in two films: Four in the Morning (1965) starring Ann Lynn and Norman Rodway and V for Vendetta (2006), starring Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman.

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{{commons category|Aldgate tube station}}

• [https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/collections-online/photographs London Transport Museum Photographs Collection]
• {{LTM archive|2010-24670|View of Aldgate station, 1902}}
• {{LTM archive|1998-69199|Aldgate East station before reconstruction, 1910}}

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Category:Circle line (London Underground) stations

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Category:Tube stations in the City of London

Category:Former Metropolitan Railway stations

Category:Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1876

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