Overview | |
---|---|
Line | West Coast Main Line |
Location | Primrose Hill, Camden, London, England |
System | National Rail |
Operation | |
Work begun | 1834 |
Opened | 1838 |
Owner | Network Rail |
Technical | |
Design engineer | Robert Stephenson and William Budden |
Length | 1,164 yards (1,064 m) |
No. of tracks | Double track in each bore |
Track gauge | Standard gauge |
Electrified | 25 kV AC OHLE |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
Official name | Primrose Hill Tunnels (Western Entrance) |
Designated | 14 May 1974 |
Reference no. | 1246989 |
Listed Building – Grade II* | |
Official name | Primrose Hill Tunnels (Eastern Portals) |
Designated | 14 May 1974 |
Reference no. | 1329904 |
Primrose Hill Tunnel is a 1,164-yard (1,064 m) railway tunnel on the West Coast Main Line, approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) from Euston station. It is located in South Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden, just north of Primrose Hill park and consists of two bores: the slow line to the northern side, driven through the London clay by the engineer Robert Stephenson for the London and Birmingham Railway in 1838, and the fast line to its south, added by the London and North Western Railway in 1879. The original tunnel's Italianate portals were designed by William Budden and later replicated for the fast line. The western portals have been listed at Grade II[1] and the eastern at Grade II* since 1974.[2]
As the first railway tunnel in London, Historic England considers it to be of special historic interest, as well as because "it was the first nationally to negotiate the issue of competing claims for the use of land in an urban context; and the first tunnel to treat one of its portals architecturally".[2]