Aldgate Underground Station

Story

Aldgate is a London Underground station which serves the Aldgate area on the eastern edge of the City of London. It is situated within the City ward of Portsoken, which neighbours the Aldgate ward. The station is on the Circle line between and, and it is the eastern terminus of the Metropolitan line. It is in Travelcard Zone 1.Aldgate was opened in 1876 with its entrance on Aldgate High Street. A station named opened nearby eight years later and is served today by the District and Hammersmith & City lines.HistoryThe route first proposed ran south from to, but this was soon amended to the present alignment to allow connection with three additional termini: Liverpool Street, and. 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 complicated because the station was on the site of a plague pit which contains an estimated 1,000 bodies.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, and trains also used to run from Aldgate to Hammersmith (the Hammersmith & City line now bypasses Aldgate). It 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.