Sudbury Town Underground Station

Sudbury Town Underground Station

This Grade II* listed station was built in handmade Buckinghamshire brick with concrete slab roofs, canopies and footbridge, and features metal-framed Crittall glazing throughout.

The station's plan consists of a tall rectangular booking hall on the north side of the tracks, flanked by single-storey flat-roofed wings that extend behind it and provide the cantilevered platform canopy. A concrete covered footbridge with long walled concrete access ramps on either side connects to the platform on the south side of the tracks, which has low concrete-roofed platform buildings also featuring cantilevered platform canopy.

The booking hall is constructed of load-bearing multi-coloured Buckinghamshire brick laid in English bond on a plain concrete plinth. The concrete roof overhangs with moulded shallow steps to the soffit and a wide frieze which originally bore neon name signs on both principal elevations—the only neon signs ever used on a London Underground station, removed by 1958. It now has bronze lettering on the street elevation only, with a large reproduction illuminated roundel below. Fenestration on the long elevations comprises four full-height metal windows, each divided into eight near-square lights with thin glazing bars splitting each light further into three panes. Each window terminates on a concrete lintel with an entrance below, grouped in two pairs. The rear elevation has five equally spaced windows separated by narrow brick piers, coming down to the level of the canopy. The lower wings are concrete-faced with white cement with brick dados and overhanging flat roofs. They incorporate a round-ended waiting room onto the platform to the north-west (and originally a refreshment room extending to the front of the station) and to the south-east form a linking corridor to the footbridge, here faced in brick. The footbridge is slightly arched with a concrete roof and narrow horizontal windows on either side, originally unglazed but now fitted with uPVC window frames. A single-storey brick-faced and concrete-roofed toilet block extends south-east of the footbridge onto the platform. Beyond the bridge stands a range of single-storey platform buildings with cantilevered concrete canopy.

The booking hall interior is finished in plain brick on a concrete plinth with a canted concrete ring beam at the level of the entrance lintels. The trabeated ceiling with deep frieze is painted mustard with pale blue panels. In the south-east wall an entrance leads to steps up to the footbridge link, retaining their original bronze handrails. On the blind end walls survive the original blue station clock and barometer. Against the north-west wall stands the original newspaper kiosk with curved glazed end, with the double doors to the refreshment room (now closed off) beyond it. The four main entrances are doorless as originally, with metal sliding grilles. The flooring is replacement St James's tiling; the 1930s flared art-deco uplighters are gone. Towards the platform, the booking hall gives way to a single-height waiting area lit by skylights in the concrete ceiling and extensive glazing, with some original eight-light Crittall windows surviving. Two windows feature enamel London Underground roundels, a unique feature of this station. A new ticket suite has been unobtrusively introduced in the south-east corner of the waiting area. The wood-panelled passimeter, reused from the original station to a design introduced during the First World War, survives complete with its ticket issuing machine, joined by a reproduction timber ticket barrier. The waiting room has reproduction timber seating.

The platforms feature modern seating and reproduction Holden-designed globe roundel lampposts not of special interest. Parts of the Holden-designed concrete boundary fence survive. Buildings on the south side of the tracks, entered from Orchard Gate, contain waiting rooms and a ticket office with Crittall glazing and window-mounted enamel roundels. Large wooden poster panels occupy the platform ends, though their originality is unclear.

Original concrete lamp posts, although with reproduction metal fittings, remain in the station forecourt and outside the entrance on Orchard Gate. At the end of the north-west boundary wall to the station forecourt stands the original small flat-roofed brick newspaper kiosk.