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Authors: Christian Wolmar
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Christmas, Easter, Whitsun and August, and, despite the protests of the powerful Sabbatarians, Sundays became days of leisure activity as well as churchgoing. The main line railways catered for the seaside trippers, offering return fares to seaside resorts likeBrighton and Margate for between three shillings and sixpence and five shillings while, as we have seen, the Metropolitan extolled the virtues of the countryside for its Sunday strollers.
The District was particularly good at developing markets for its railway aside from peak-hour traffic of people going to and from work. It sponsored many bus services, run by contractors, to feed into its system and it made sure that it laid on extra services for special events. Exhibitions were a major source of traffic and many were held at the then open grounds between the Albert Hall and South Kensington. The District actually built a pedestrian subway under Exhibition Road from South Kensington station, charging users a penny for the pleasure of avoiding the traffic above to reach the exhibitions or South Kensington (later Victoria & Albert) museum. The opening of the passage in May 1885 coincided with the start of an Inventions Exhibition and thereafter the District, rather meanly, only allowed it to be used on special occasions. It was not until December 1908 that it became open permanently and the toll was abolished. Many of the varied set of exhibitions on the grounds in the 1880s attracted huge crowds, including fisheries (attended by 2.75 million people), health, and ‘colonial & Indian’ (the biggest, which brought in 5.5 million). The District further encouraged this trade by offering ‘artisans’ a return journey to South Kensington, together with admission for just one shilling. After 1886, when the site was developed for what is now Imperial College, the exhibitions moved to Earls Court.
There, another attraction owed its location, indeed its very existence, to the District: the Big Wheel at Earls Court. The District had already built a covered way to give passengers easy access to the site of the many exhibitions at Earls Court, now the site of the two Exhibition Halls. But it was the Big Wheel, London’s response to the Eiffel Tower, which proved the real draw. Built in 1895, the 300-foot-diameter wheel was based on the famous Ferris wheel in Chicago and attracted 2.5 million visitors during its twelve-year life. Ironically, the biggest lure seems to have been the prospect of a breakdown. In May 1896, thecompany running the tower responded to the one prolonged failure by paying each of the hundreds of people who had spent all night dangling in mid-air the sum of £5, equivalent to several months’ wages for many of them. Consequently, a queue of 11,000 people hoping for a similar mishap built up the following day. Just a little north of Earls Court was the Olympia building, opened in 1886 and served by Addison Road station, on the outer Circle route. Olympia was used by circuses, including Barnum’s, which attracted massive crowds in the winter of 1889–90, and then was briefly a roller-skating rink when the sport was at the height of its popularity before the Second World War. By the late 1880s, it enjoyed a fantastic train service, with 331 trains daily.
Watkin, incidentally, set about creating an even more direct rival to the Eiffel Tower, a similar but bigger construction at Wembley, also with the aim of attracting passengers on to his railway. But like many of Watkin’s schemes, the project was only half completed. Watkin had wanted Gustave Eiffel himself to build a tower higher than his eponymous 900-foot-high steel spire in Paris. When Eiffel turned down the job, the contract was awarded to a rival firm with a similar plan for an eight-legged steel tower with two platforms each containing restaurants, theatres, exhibitions and even Turkish baths. The first stage, 155 feet high, but with only four legs, was opened in 1896 but attracted remarkably
The District was particularly good at developing markets for its railway aside from peak-hour traffic of people going to and from work. It sponsored many bus services, run by contractors, to feed into its system and it made sure that it laid on extra services for special events. Exhibitions were a major source of traffic and many were held at the then open grounds between the Albert Hall and South Kensington. The District actually built a pedestrian subway under Exhibition Road from South Kensington station, charging users a penny for the pleasure of avoiding the traffic above to reach the exhibitions or South Kensington (later Victoria & Albert) museum. The opening of the passage in May 1885 coincided with the start of an Inventions Exhibition and thereafter the District, rather meanly, only allowed it to be used on special occasions. It was not until December 1908 that it became open permanently and the toll was abolished. Many of the varied set of exhibitions on the grounds in the 1880s attracted huge crowds, including fisheries (attended by 2.75 million people), health, and ‘colonial & Indian’ (the biggest, which brought in 5.5 million). The District further encouraged this trade by offering ‘artisans’ a return journey to South Kensington, together with admission for just one shilling. After 1886, when the site was developed for what is now Imperial College, the exhibitions moved to Earls Court.
There, another attraction owed its location, indeed its very existence, to the District: the Big Wheel at Earls Court. The District had already built a covered way to give passengers easy access to the site of the many exhibitions at Earls Court, now the site of the two Exhibition Halls. But it was the Big Wheel, London’s response to the Eiffel Tower, which proved the real draw. Built in 1895, the 300-foot-diameter wheel was based on the famous Ferris wheel in Chicago and attracted 2.5 million visitors during its twelve-year life. Ironically, the biggest lure seems to have been the prospect of a breakdown. In May 1896, thecompany running the tower responded to the one prolonged failure by paying each of the hundreds of people who had spent all night dangling in mid-air the sum of £5, equivalent to several months’ wages for many of them. Consequently, a queue of 11,000 people hoping for a similar mishap built up the following day. Just a little north of Earls Court was the Olympia building, opened in 1886 and served by Addison Road station, on the outer Circle route. Olympia was used by circuses, including Barnum’s, which attracted massive crowds in the winter of 1889–90, and then was briefly a roller-skating rink when the sport was at the height of its popularity before the Second World War. By the late 1880s, it enjoyed a fantastic train service, with 331 trains daily.
Watkin, incidentally, set about creating an even more direct rival to the Eiffel Tower, a similar but bigger construction at Wembley, also with the aim of attracting passengers on to his railway. But like many of Watkin’s schemes, the project was only half completed. Watkin had wanted Gustave Eiffel himself to build a tower higher than his eponymous 900-foot-high steel spire in Paris. When Eiffel turned down the job, the contract was awarded to a rival firm with a similar plan for an eight-legged steel tower with two platforms each containing restaurants, theatres, exhibitions and even Turkish baths. The first stage, 155 feet high, but with only four legs, was opened in 1896 but attracted remarkably
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