The Railway

At the turn of the century, when the railways first came, the Rayners Lane area was still very rural.

Building The Railway

The first significant movement toward the northwest fringes of London occurred in the 1880s under the chairmanship of Sir Edward Watkin. His focus was the “Extension Line.” After reaching Harrow-on-the-Hill in 1880, the tracks were pushed forward into the undulating fields of Pinner, reaching the village on May 25, 1885. The Metropolitan Railway opened a branch to Uxbridge in 1904.

Navvy with turf hut near Rayners Lane — Not all the men employed on the contract liked living at the cramped navvies’ camp at Ickenham, with its high risk of fever. This man has built a turf hut near Rayners Lane. He wears traditional navvy dress, with straps just below the knees, an ample belt and braces, and a hat to keep off the hot sun. Some of his washing is drying on a bush to the right, whilst the pile of bricks are part of an “oven” on which he probably cooked rabbits poached from the hay fields.

A view from occupation bridge just west of Rayners Lane junction, showing how rural the are was in the early days of the railway.

Locomotive on temporary track near Rayners lane — One of the standard gauge locomotives used by Bott and Stennett. “Lily” was built by Hudswell Clarke and Co at Leeds in 1902. She is seen here on the temporary track at Rayners Lane.

Rayners Lane Junction — Rayners Lane junction before services were running. Although everything looks complete, including conductor rails, the presence of wagons on the track indicates that this photo was taken prior to services starting.

Rayners Lane itself had to be raised on an embankment to cross the railway and a small ticket office was built on the bridge.

Rayners Lane station opened as Rayners Lane Halt on 26^th May 1906. It was however no more than a hut with a few planks for a platform in a rural area and was seemingly pointless.

At Rayners Lane ticket office there was no shelter for the queue when this northward looking view was taken in September 1929. The white-gated entrance to the down platform is on the left, while the way to the other is past the office. The clump of high trees at the right is the Avenue of Elms.

Edwin Ware writes: “In 1924 I often used this halt on Sundays . . . . There was rarely anyone else there, either passengers or staff. When a train was due, you held out your hand in good time to stop it and when returning asked the guard to stop at the halt”. For nearly twenty years, it remained one of the least-used stops on the entire London network, often seeing only a handful of passengers a day.

It was once described as “the loneliest station on the Metropolitan Railway, apparently unfriended, unvisited and untrod” as well as being known as ‘Pneumonia Junction’ due to the winds coming in from the Chilterns.

View of Rayners Lane station from the north east. You can see the raised embankment created for the station, The sheep are grazing where the Imperial Drive embankment would shortly afterwards appear.

In 1910, the District Line services started calling at the station, via a junction connecting the station with South Harrow and allowing services on that line to operate up to Uxbridge. But at that time the area was still not being developed for housing. This route was transferred over to the Piccadilly Line in 1933.

By 1929, the station was officially renamed ‘Rayners Lane’.

The Uxbridge branch of the Metropolitan Line had been overwhelmed by the housing developments of the early 1930s, and most of the old stations were in urgent need of improvement.

Rayners Lane Station Platforms — It looks as though repairs are being made to the ‘up’ platform of the old Rayners Lane station around 1933. Most of the platform name signs have the solid diamond backgrounds of the Metropolitan Railway, but there at the right is the bar and circle preferred by the other lines, which The London Transport Passenger Board adopted after it took over the underground lines in 1933.

The phenomenal increase in the use of Rayners Lane station had outstripped the capacity of the Metropolitan’s timber booking hut and corrugated-iron shelters on wooden platforms. A larger, temporary wooden ticket hall was in service from 14th March 1935, and work began on a new station.

Rayners Lane Bridge was reconstructed in 1936. The lane runs across from top to bottom, In the left foreground the pedestrian is moving towards the unfinished Alexandra Avenue, and the shops with the round tower will arise. A slightly realigned Imperial Drive will enter between Nash’s state hut and the further hut, which was Reid’s. Beyond Reid’s, the two shops in the course of construction are numbers 328 to 330 Rayners Lane, with the rear of Village Way behind to their right. The site of Nash’s estate office is now part of the embankment, and the hut which had been Reid’s coal office hung on for a good 50 years until it was burnt down in 1985.

Rayners Lane Underground station was designed by New Zealand architect Reginald Uren, and opened in 1938, 5 years after the Piccadilly line was extended there. Uren drew heavily on designs by Charles Holden at Sudbury Town and Sudbury Hill.

Uren’s original design was altered by Charles Holden bringing it further into the street, which allowed easier access to and from the station.

Rayners Lane Station is surprisingly unaltered and maintains original doors and exterior and interior signage. The building was awarded Grade II-listed status on 17 May 1994.

Building The Railway

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