Mark Lane Ghost Station | Look Up London

Mark Lane | The Tower Hill Ghost Station

As you walk along the traffic-packed Byward Street, with All Hallows Barking, the Tower of London and Tower Bridge in the distance, it’s thoroughly understandable that you’d miss a ghost station hiding in plain sight.

Mark Lane Ghost Station | Look Up London

Abandoned or ‘Ghost’ stations can be seen all over London (I’ve even visited a few) and often they’re easy to spot because of the tell-tale oxblood tiles designed by Leslie Green

Above is the former Strand Station at Aldwych, viewed from Surrey Street. Read about my tour inside here

Mark Lane Station didn’t have those lovely tiles and instead housed some stone-faced offices. Today, it’s occupied by a branch of All Bar One.

History of Mark Lane Station

As ever, the history of London stations is a little bit complicated.

The Metropolitan Railway opened an underground station called ‘Tower of London’ in 1882.

However, work on the Circle Line (known as the Inner Circle) which was a joint venture between the Metropolitan Railway and the District Railway meant that only 2 years later a new station was opened by the District Railway.

This was originally going to be called Seething Lane (the site being on the corner of Seething Lane and Great Tower Street) however they named it Mark Lane.

Mark Lane is a surviving nearby street – originally a corruption of Marthe Lane – and was apparently named after some unknown ‘Martha’, first recorded c.1200.



Image Credit: Agas Map c.1560s from layersoflondon.org

On the OS map from the 1890s below I’ve circled the Mark Lane Station in red and in blue you can see the short-lived Tower of London Station (but more on that shortly).



Image Credit: OS Map from layersoflondon.org

Byward Street was laid out between 1882-4, cutting through the existing Great Tower Street towards Trinity Square in alignment with the Metropolitan Railway Line below.

The original station was a small and simple structure. Here’s an image form the London Transport Museum dating from 1897.


Image Credit: © TfL

In the early 1900s the station was absorbed into a new office building.

The ground floor was designed by George Sherrin, 1909 and the upper storeys were offices, added later in 1911 and occupied by Messers van den Bergh, a Dutch company that manufactured margarine!

Built on a budget, the narrow platforms couldn’t handle the stream of tourists intent on visiting the Tower of London. In 1946 the station was renamed Tower Hill and then in 1967 a new station called Tower Hill was built, near the site of the original Tower of London Station from 1882.

What Survives of Mark Lane Station?

As well as the building itself, there are several clues worth looking out for. Firstly, you can see the former entrance to some steps down to a pedestrian subway.

The alternative entrance can be seen on the opposite side of the street;

A more sneaky detail can be found by looking closely at the frontage on Byward Street. There are faded square spaces between the arches where Metropolitan Railway signage would’ve been placed;

Mark Lane Ghost Station | Look Up London

Meanwhile around the corner on Seething Lane there’s a former entrance and if you look above the door you can make out the faded ‘Mark Lane Station Entrance’.

Here’s a closer look;

The real question of course, is whether there’s still a station of sorts underground and it turns out there is! If you keep your eyes peeled travelling between Tower Hill and Monument on the District or Circle line, you can spy the station from the carriage.

Here is a very blurry image I captured;

Happily, I found a jaw-dropping video on YouTube of an urban explorer going down into the old station. I love the fact the door was just left unlocked!

So there you go, the surprising Tower Hill ghost station hiding in plain sight!


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9 Comments

  • Brian

    Reply

    Mark Street was featured on Hidden Underground on Yesterday Channel this week.

    May 18, 2022 at 8:04 am
  • Jeremy Buck

    Reply

    You mention All Hallows Barking, but this church was renamed All Hallows By The Tower many years ago.

    May 18, 2022 at 8:24 am
  • Ronald Lloyd

    Reply

    Dear Katie, I always love stories about London’s Ghosts and especially Ghost Railway Stations. This was a supurb story as usual from you. I loved the pictures too. All the best from Ron.

    May 18, 2022 at 9:52 am
  • Alan Huntley

    Reply

    Fantastic, I used that subway every working day to get to the old Bowring building which was designed as a letter “S” with an 11 floor tower at the Western end. I asked an old colleague I worked with about the Mark Lane station and where it was and he told me all about it as he remembered it. Have you heard about the old wine vaults underneath the Tower Hill Speakers Corner as was? It used to be the storage area for Bowring, a rickety spiral staircase going down to a vast underground area. The last time I saw it 15 years ago a McDonald’s has taken over some of it. Now the old S block has been knocked down and replaced with 2 modern monstrosities.

    May 18, 2022 at 9:53 am
  • Wendy Johnson

    Reply

    Amazing video.

    May 18, 2022 at 6:57 pm
  • Interesting story about mark lane London ghost station.. great & informative posts. Pictures are lovely.. Keep sharing this kind of stuff!!

    May 23, 2022 at 6:47 am

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