IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Wood Lane, LONDON, W12 7RQ

Corner of Wood Lane and Ariel Way, the new Hammersmith & City line station Wood Lane under construction, to coincide with opening of the whitecity Shopping centre on October 30 2008, said to be the first station to open on an existing line for over 70 years. The glass fronted building is Network House. whitecity has now been renamed Westfield for the opening, see also Image **note to mods** ''whitecity'' is written as is and not White City, WhiteCity or Whitecity, thx. ***

The present-day Hammersmith and City line was opened on 13th June 1864 by the Metropolitan Railway as the Hammersmith branch line. The railway became part of London Underground in 1922. n 1908 the Franco-British Exhibition and the 1908 Summer Olympics came to London. The Metropolitan Railway opened its Wood Lane station on the Hammersmith branch to serve the event area. The station opened and closed intermittently, and was renamed twice, as Wood Lane (White City) in 1920 and White City in 1947, before it finally closed in 1959 following fire damage. When work commenced on the Westfield Shopping Centre in 2005 it was decided to rebuild Shepherd's Bush Central line station, construct a new Shepherd's Bush station on the West London Line, and provide two new bus interchanges to serve the planned shopping complex. It was also decided to build a new station on the Hammersmith & City line, on a site just south-west of the old Metropolitan station on Wood Lane. It was named Wood Lane and was the first time that a brand new station on the Tube had been given the name of a disused station. The station opened on 12 October 2008. This view looks towards Latimer Road station.

On the Circle and Hammersmith & City Lines.

The brand new Wood Lane station that opened in early October 2008 looking towards Latimer Road station.

A New station designed by Ian Ritchie Architects and opened on 12 October 2008. Built to serve the nearby Westfield shopping centre

London's newest underground station.

A view looking north along Wood Lane. In the foreground is Wood Lane station, on London Underground's Hammersmith & City line. The line is above street level at this point (it crosses the road more-or-less right above the photographer). The station opened in 2008, although on the day the photo was taken, the line was closed for maintenance work. Visible around 200 metres further along the street is another Underground station, White City, on the Central Line. The Central line emerges above ground just before entering White City station, having passed through Central London in tunnel.

I thought this was marked Ariel Way, but it doesn't yet appear on any maps and the present Ariel Way runs slightly to the south. Westfield phase two (on the left, Image]) has obliterated everything which stood before, including Relay Road and Silver Road (Image]). On the right is the tube approaching Wood Lane station. Ahead is the former Television Centre's East Tower, the development of which accounts for the cranes (Image]).