07/09/2026
Up the Peoples!
Back in Tooting, these amazing streamlined classical kooks are the unmissable two-part street entrances to the Tooting Bec Underground Station on the Northern Line.
Opened in 1926, the station was part of an ambitious extension of the underground southwards to Morden started in 1923 by the City and South London Railway, linking up London’s booming south-western suburbs and showcasing a new, unified and easy-to-identify brand look for the network.
Designed by architect Charles Holden, the station is the best preserved of seven along the line that each wear the striking classical-inspired functional architectural identity he developed that boldly and playfully projects the undeground’s roundel at every opportunity, in its glazing, signage, canopy, lighting and in the spherical capitals atop the columns across the facades.
The entrances were prototyped years before construction, outlining the strategy through 1:1 mock ups. At Tooting Bec this strategy is fantastically hybridised and squeezed at the ‘satellite’ on a narrow strip of land to the east of the main road.
NB: Citizen Smith was a 1970s BBC sitcom set in Tooting that used the stations in its opening sequence and included the frequently misquoted solidarity catchphrase ‘Power to the People.’
