Trivia: Stations named after buildings.

[philthetube]

Doesn't a building need a roof and walls? If so, it would need to be something like Pulteney Bridge in Bath.

Being pedantic a bridge does have walls and a roof, try standing under one when it rains.

 

[AlbertBeale]

Coventry Arena
Stadium of Light (Metro)
St James's (Metro)?
Manchester Airport
Gatwick Airport
Covent Garden (LU)
Bradford Interchange

No - Covent Garden on the Picc Line isn't named after a building. (Were you thinking of the opera house?) The station is named after the district [a corruption, a long time back, of convent garden]; the district also gave its name to the market (which was and is many buildings). The Royal Opera House is, more fully, called the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and hence sometimes shortened to Covent Garden when the context makes that sufficient; just as the name of Covent Garden Market (when it was in its original market incarnation) was often shortened to just Covent Garden when the context made it clear.

I'm sure that more users of the station in the market years were there for the market rather than for the opera house*, hence if the station were to have been named for something other than the district, it would have been the market not the opera. (*Or even, in my case, for Bow Street Magistrates' Court, bang opposite the ROH, where I had business more often than I had in either the opera house or the market.)

 

[Lloyds siding]

And there's Dover Priory.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

Dundee Tay Bridge (now just Dundee) is also named after a bridge. It's also quite special as it has a station on the bridge (Dundee Esplanade, now closed).

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Coventry Arena.
Harlow Mill.
St. Albans Abbey.
Dover Priory.
Yeovil Pen Mill.

And there's Dover Priory.

Yep. Had that one already as well.

 

[AlbertBeale]

I don't think that's why it was called 'Clapham' Junction. In fact I don't even know if there was a regular train service from the Junction to Clapham (High Street as is now) before the Overground a few years ago. It was called Clapham, I believe, because Clapham was the upmarket and desirable suburb whereas Battersea wasn't (think Dogs' Home). Now of course all of SW London is upmarket.

Hmmm - everyone I've known living near the Junction (reasonably well-to-do and very much not so) have considered themselves to be living in Battersea, and to be a good distance from Clapham.

Did Battersea have a down-market image in the 19th century? Maybe. I'd say that if it were originally named on account of the desire to sound more upmarket, it was done despite the fact that it was in the middle of Battersea and a mile from Clapham!

 

[30907]

Bolton Abbey (though that is now on a heritage railway)

Pedantically interesting one - the settlement is called Bolton Abbey, but the parish (former monastic) church in Bolton Priory

Isn't St Pancras named after a person rather than a building?

Only indirectly - without Old St Pancras Church and parish, no-one in the area would have thought of the saint.

Going a bit tenuous with this one, but would Bath Spa be applicable? Town named after a building, and the station specifically being named after the Spa to differentiate it from Bath Green Park station.

Very tenuous, as the GW got there comfortably first - and GP was Queen Square at first as well.

 

[Lloyds siding]

There are a surprising number named after pubs:
Aintree was formerly Aintree Sefton Arms (named after the adjacent pub)....the next station down the line is Old Roan (named after the adjacent pub). Birkdale Palace was named after...the adjacent hotel. Waterloo (Merseyside) is a district named after the Royal Waterloo Hotel.
Craven Arms (not named after the town of Craven Arms...which only grew after the arrival of the railway, which named their station after the nearby inn).
Bay Horse (on the WCML), Boar's Head (on the WCML), White Bear (Adlington), Britannia (in Lancashire), Cherry Tree, Clock Face.

 

[SteveM70]

If it's built by someone it must be a building surely?

I don’t think so. A building is a structure with walls and a roof. A bridge, a road, a wall etc are structures not buildings

 

[topydre]

Potentially a good shout, but is a bridge a building as such or just a structure?

I was wondering that, and yes it could extend to Pontypridd etc.; however a post on page 1 had referred to London Bridge so I assumed it was OK

 

[racyrich]

Audley End
Blake Hall

Did anyone mention Swiss Cottage?

Anything named something Quay

 

[Mikey C]

A future one... Brent Cross Thameslink

Surprised nobody hasn't mentioned Brent Cross tube station, as that was originally called just "Brent" but renamed to "Brent Cross" in 1976 after the shopping centre when that opened

In a similar vein, "Surrey Docks" station was renamed "Surrey Quays" in 1989 after the nearby Surrey Quays shopping centre, as the area wasn't known as that before the shopping centre opened.

 

[AlbertBeale]

Surprised nobody hasn't mentioned Brent Cross tube station, as that was originally called just "Brent" but renamed to "Brent Cross" in 1976 after the shopping centre when that opened

In a similar vein, "Surrey Docks" station was renamed "Surrey Quays" in 1989 after the nearby Surrey Quays shopping centre, as the area wasn't known as that before the shopping centre opened.

Re "as the area wasn't known as that before the shopping centre opened" - and it still isn't by many Londoners! Surrey Docks is Surrey Docks, innit?

 

[ijmad]

I believe there are six tube stations named after pubs :

• Angel
• Elephant & Castle,
• Maida Vale (after the Hero of Maida)
• Manor House (after The Manor House Inn)
• Royal Oak
• Swiss Cottage (after The Swiss Tavern).

It once came up in a pub quiz I did.

 

[AlbertBeale]

I don't think anyone has mentioned a former tube station that fits the bill - British Museum.

Given where I live, I shouldn't have overlooked it.

 

[Isambard]

Euston? Isn’t it named after Euston Hall, seat of the landowner at the time it was built? (Albeit more than 80 miles away.)

 

[Mikey C]

Custom House (DLR)

As the full name is "Custom House for ExCel", that's 2 buildings

 

[SeanG]

Monument on the T&W Metro is named after Greys Monument in Newcastle.
Whilst a tower with a statue on top (not unlike Nelsons Column for those who don't know), you can go inside through a door and walk up stairs inside the column to the top, so technically a building.

Also Haymarket on the Metro system.

 

[The North Briton]

Hard to believe, but Bank Hall in North Liverpool was the name of a medieval manor house of the Moore family and now has a Merseyrail station named after it.

 

[Ken H]

I don't think we've had Crystal Palace yet - named after two TV masts. (Will get my coat). Seriously though the two stations were built to serve the palace after it was moved to Penge Park in the early 1850s.

crystal palace was a building. originally in hyde park for 1851 exhibition, then moved to south london. Mum remembered it burning down in in 1936.
wiki article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Palace

 

[Nick_C]

Bungalow, on the Snaefell Mountain Railway
Also on the IOM - Derby Castle
Sheffield Park
If closed stations are allowed - Cement Mills Halt (IOW)

 

[geoffk]

Ashburys in Manchester is named after the Ashbury Railway Carriage and Iron Company, which built it in 1855. There is no district of this name. Ashbury's factory had moved to Openshaw in 1841 (Wikipedia). The company later became part of Metropolitan-Cammell.

 

[snookertam]

Beasdale on the Mallaig branch of the West Highland line is named after Beasdale house I believe.

 

[30907]

Euston? Isn’t it named after Euston Hall, seat of the landowner at the time it was built? (Albeit more than 80 miles away.)

Pedantically, wasn't it named after Lord Euston himself? Perhaps via Euston Road which W... says dates from 1756?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Beasdale on the Mallaig branch of the West Highland line is named after Beasdale house I believe.

Surely it's named after the glen in the locality (Gleann Biasdail) and in any event, isn't the big house in the area, not actually Arisaig House, once used for SOE training during WW2?

 

[YorksLad12]

My only contribution to this thread so far has been to quibble about Meadowhall somewhere near the start; so I'd like to offer up Kirkstall Forge. There was a forge, it was in Kirkstall and the station is on the site of the former Kirkstall Forge. I'm stretching here, I know...

 

[AlistairCL]

Glasgow Subway stations:
Kelvinhall
St Enoch

and, if we include bridges?
Kelvinbridge

 

[Bedpan]

crystal palace was a building. originally in hyde park for 1851 exhibition, then moved to south london. Mum remembered it burning down in in 1936.
wiki article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Palace

yes, as I said---Penge Park is the site in South London to which it was relocated in the early 1850s, (after the great exhibition in Hyde Park in 1851).

 

[Dr_Paul]

Blake Hall station on the Epping to Ongar line was named after Blake Hall, a big old house near to Bobbingworth, a good mile from the station. (Historical point: part of Blake Hall was used as an operations room for North Weald aerodrome in the last war, after the one there was hit by a Luftwaffe bomb. Its last use was as a posh wedding venue.)

 

[EbbwJunction1]

My contribution is Ninian Park, although I'm not sure whether the ground or the station came first.

I think that it's the former, because it was named after the son of the Marquis of Bute, one of whose Christian names was "Ninian".