Arnos Grove Underground Station

Arnos Grove Underground Station

Arnos Grove Underground Station is a Grade II* listed building, an underground railway station designed as a modernist structure with a reinforced concrete frame clad in Buckinghamshire red and Staffordshire brindled blue brick. The building features flat concrete slab roofs with dentilled soffits.

The station comprises a tall circular ticket hall set within a square single-storey base containing shops and offices, positioned on the west side of a cutting. Entrances to the south and west serve the street and car park respectively, with the front entrance divided into two by a brick pier. The brickwork of the base extends eastward to provide the parapet for a road bridge over the cutting. A concrete gantry descends from the ticket hall, providing stairways to the platforms below.

The ticket hall features a reinforced concrete frame with the tall circular drum clad in red Buckinghamshire bricks laid in a mixture of bonds to create a diaper-work effect. Brindled blue Staffordshire brickwork is used for the lower parts of the building and the bridge parapet. The flat oversailing concrete roofs have dentilled soffits and deep concrete cornices. The drum is pierced by vertical bands of metal windows alternating with brick infill. Each window contains fifteen lights with thin horizontal glazing bars between broader, near-square section frames. Most of the original stippled glazing survives. The lower building has large areas of horizontal glazing above long artificial stone sills, which continue as a dado and are set under a concrete cornice inset with a reinstated blue tiled band bearing the station name in Johnson Sans typeface. Poster boards with timber frames are fixed to the brickwork. A freestanding flag-pole mounted London Underground roundel sign with reproduction 1930s graphics bearing the name 'UNDERGROUND' between hashed lines is mounted on the projecting roof towards the street. Further bronze-mounted replacement roundels are set on concrete panels on the brick walls at each end of the bus slip road. Four original concrete lamp posts stand in front of the car park, fitted with modern light fittings. Dwarf walls of Staffordshire brick with artificial stone coping enclose planters on the south and west of the station and another fronts the car park.

Inside the ticket hall, the concrete frame is expressed by a large concrete ring-beam where the Staffordshire brick-clad lower ranges meet the upper Buckinghamshire brick-clad drum, and by sixteen vertical ribs forming pilasters above the ring beam. The exposed concrete roof is supported on a single giant board-marked column descending from a slightly convex ceiling boss. The column is surrounded by the original circular passimeter or ticket office, glazed above sill height with steel windows angled to form part of the passimeter roof structure. A desk with fitted drawers and cupboards lines the interior. At the western entrance to the car park, five wooden telephone kiosks and a telephone directory niche have been sensitively restored. The offices and two shops have similar timber windows and glazed timber doors with original door handles and reproduction Johnson Sans lettering in the fascia above. A modern ticket office with bronze detailing has been set into the curve of the drum on the north side. Bronze poster frames on timber panels line the walls, whilst the newspaper kiosk at the southern entrance has a timber counter and rear shelving. The floor tiles are modern replacements. From the east of the ticket hall, steps lead down to a concrete bridge over the tracks lit by metal-framed windows with horizontal glazing bars. Clerestorey windows make the steps particularly light, and they retain original bronze handrails, small bronze wall-mounted light fittings and timber poster panels. From the bridge, two sets of steps on either side lead to platform level.

The platform shelters comprise concrete canopies supported on lintels set between pairs of near-square columns, slightly arched at their tops, with central rooflights. Behind each set of stairs are benches shielded by glazed screens. Other fixed seats on the platform are timber; five seats facing both directions and bearing roundels are original, whilst those without roundels are later additions. Free-standing concrete tripartite poster-boards with tile surrounds to the bronze poster frames and central roundel are also present. Further bronze-framed roundels are affixed to the wall on the far side of the track and sides of the staircases. Other early or original platform furniture includes 'Way Out' signs, platform number signs, bronze staff letter boxes and an analogue clock suspended from a cross-beam on the eastbound platform. An enclosed steel-clad staff footbridge was later added at the south end of the platforms and is not of special interest.

The road bridge on Bowes Road, with the exception of the northern parapet wall, is not included in the listing.