Aldwych Underground Station

MATERIALS: Steel frame clad in brick, faced in ox-blood red faience produced by the Leeds Fireclay Co Ltd.

PLAN: The surface building occupies the irregular footprint of the Royal Strand Theatre that previously stood on the site. It has an inverted T-plan with an entrance and former booking hall to the north, and entrance from the east in Surrey Street, a pair of lifts to the south-west, and ladies and gentlemen's cloakrooms to the west. A parallel exit corridor lies to the south behind the lifts.

EXTERIOR: Aldwych was one of the few Leslie Green stations to have two separate façades. 2 storeys high. (E) elevation to Surrey Street has 3 main pilastered bays, the central slightly broader with a later shop front, plus a narrower bay to the left which has an entrance to the upper floors with an original panelled door with arched hood and fanlight. The first-floor windows date from c1928. Façade has early raised lettering denoting the entrance and exit, the frieze bearing the name PICCADILLY RLY. Above this is a dentilled cornice. N elevation to the Strand is of a single arched bay. Entrance has original iron transom with diamond lattice panels, and black-and-white tiled lettering above reading STRAND STATION. The upper storey has a timber Diocletian window in a keyed semi-circular arch with egg-and-dart moulding. The frieze also has early lettering: PICCADILLY RLY above which is a dentilled cornice.

INTERIOR: Ticket hall and S exit corridor have original tiling, which does not follow the earlier standard design, being in cream with a plain green frieze. Just inside the Strand entrance is a tiled sign reading ENTRANCE TO BOOKING HALL and further down a pair of original timber pedimented ticket office windows (there were originally three), each with a window above, with a tiled sign reading BOOK HERE. Opposite is a series of timber 1930s telephone booths; the doors have been removed. The lift enclosure has a panelled timber frontage with a dentilled cornice and art-nouveau ventilation grilles. Other features include coloured terrazzo flooring with black-banded borders, beamed ceilings with plaster cornices, doors and other joinery, timber poster panels, and fittings in the ladies' and gentlemen's rooms. The timber ticket office front on the south side dates from the 1980s and is not of special interest. The spiral stair and lower corridors have dado-height tiling in cream and deep turquoise-green. The W platform (that operated until 1994) also retains original tiling and STRAND signage, partly overpainted. The E platform (that ceased use in 1917) has been stripped back to the steel structure. The track is the last remaining in-situ section of original deep tube track, with no 'anti-suicide' pit (a feature introduced in 1926), timber sleepers, rails and Doulton rectangular insulators.