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Station Road, ILFORD, IG6 1NB

Construction of the line from Ilford through Barkingside and Chigwell to join the Epping and Ongar line at Woodford started in 1900, although powers had been obtained as early as 1846. The stations were built to high standards. Passenger and local freight operations started on 1st May 1903. At first the service worked from either Fenchurch Street or Liverpool Street and then back both ways round the loop. Everything was done to prepare for heavy passenger traffic, misplaced optimism being shown by the stations which all had substantial buildings and long platforms. Barkingside was the most handsome of the six stations. Barkingside station at least had a village and Dr Barnardo Girls' Home to serve, both one quarter mile west of its platforms. Despite all this, patronage was very low until the building boom of the late 1920s and early 1930s when almost all the land between the eastern bank of the River Roding and the Hainault Loop was filled with small houses up to a point well north of Barkingside. Eventually pressure from commuters in the new houses and the formation of the London Passenger Transport Board led to the proposal to extend the Central London line from its then terminus at Liverpool Street to Stratford and on to Leyton to join the Loughton line. At Leytonstone the new Tube would be made under Eastern Avenue as far as Newbury Park where the Underground would take over services on the Hainault Loop. Work was well underway from October 1936 when they stopped in 1940 because of the War. Plessey used the tunnels during the War for the manufacture of aircraft components, but after the War work began again and the first Tube trains were operated between Leytonstone and Newbury Park from Sunday 14th December 1947. LNER steam ran for the last time on Saturday 29th November 1947. Hainault was reached by Underground trains on 31st May 1948 and Woodford via Chigwell on 21st November. The connection between Newbury Park and the main line east of Ilford was disconnected on 17th March 1956. Much of the old track was filled to ground level to provide allotments. This view looks along the down platform. The next station in this direction is Fairlop.

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This is the frontage of Barkingside station, seen looking north-northeast from Thames Building Supplies. The piles of material in the builder's merchants are pea shingle banks, if you're wondering.

The station building was designed by William Burgess for the Great Eastern Railway and was opened in 1903 on the branch line from Woodford to Ilford via Hainault. As part of the 1935 - 1940 New Works Programme of the London Passenger Transport Board the line was to be electrified and the station was to be transferred to form one of the eastern extensions of the Underground's Central Line. In the event the disruption of the Second World War delayed progress and the transfer and electrification was not effected until 1948. With its small domed cupola on top the building is Grade II Listed.