What did Lancaster Gate and Harry Bell Measures brown plaque do at Lancaster Gate?


The Story
# Lancaster Gate Station Platform Standing on the Lancaster Gate platforms in 1900, architect Harry Bell Measures completed what would become a frozen moment in London's transport history—designing the stations for the newly opened Central London Railway with an elegant simplicity that would outlast a century of modernization efforts. His vision for these platforms, with their distinctive plain white tiles and refined proportions, represented the cutting edge of early Edwardian station design, a philosophy so sound that London Underground deliberately preserved the original high-level tiling when they renovated this very space in 2006. For Measures, this commission was the culmination of coordinated architectural ambition: he didn't just create functional transit infrastructure, but established a design language so timeless that transport planners would later choose to honor rather than replace it. Today, if you stand on either platform and look upward, you're literally gazing at Measures's handiwork—the original tiles still gleaming above the tracks—a testament to a designer whose restraint and craftsmanship proved more enduring than the bombastic monuments that often capture architectural fame.
Location
Lancaster Gate, Bayswater Road