Aldwych Underground Station

Aldwych is an underground station building constructed in the 1930s, part of the Piccadilly line extension. The surface building occupies the footprint of the former Royal Strand Theatre. It is one of the few Leslie Green stations to feature two separate façades.

The building is two storeys high, with a steel frame clad in brick faced with ox-blood red faience produced by the Leeds Fireclay Co Ltd. The eastern elevation, on Surrey Street, has three main pilastered bays, the central one slightly broader and incorporating a later shop front. A narrower bay to the left provides access to upper floors via an original panelled door with an arched hood and fanlight; the first-floor windows date from circa 1928. The façade features early raised lettering denoting entrance and exit, with a frieze bearing the name PICCADILLY RLY. Above the frieze is a dentilled cornice. The northern elevation, on the Strand, consists of a single arched bay. The original iron transom with diamond lattice panels marks the entrance, accompanied by black-and-white tiled lettering reading STRAND STATION. The upper storey has a timber Diocletian window within a keyed semi-circular arch, decorated with egg-and-dart moulding; the frieze also displays early lettering: PICCADILLY RLY, topped with a dentilled cornice.

The ticket hall and south exit corridor retain original tiling in a cream colour with a plain green frieze, a design differing from earlier standards. Inside the Strand entrance, a tiled sign reads ENTRANCE TO BOOKING HALL, followed by a pair of original timber ticket office windows, originally three in number, each with a window above and a tiled sign reading BOOK HERE. Opposite these are a series of timber telephone booths from the 1930s, although the doors have been removed. The lift enclosure has a panelled timber frontage with a dentilled cornice and art-nouveau ventilation grilles. Other interior features include coloured terrazzo flooring with black-banded borders, beamed ceilings with plaster cornices, original timber doors and joinery, timber poster panels, and fittings in the ladies’ and gentlemen’s cloakrooms. The timber ticket office front on the south side dates from the 1980s and is not considered of special interest. The spiral stair and lower corridors are characterised by dado-height tiling, cream in colour with a deep turquoise-green. The western platform, which operated until 1994, retains original tiling and STRAND signage, though partly overpainted. The eastern platform, which ceased use in 1917, has been stripped back to the steel structure. The track remaining on this platform represents the last in-situ section of original deep tube track, retaining timber sleepers, rails, and Doulton rectangular insulators; it lacks a "anti-suicide" pit, a feature introduced in 1926.