Kingsway Tram Subway, at one time, probably the most important stretch of tram track in London, featured on film and in comics, is open to the public to tour, thanks to London Transport Museum.
Reached by a ramp in the middle of Southampton Row at the intersection of Theobalds Road, it was closed over 70 years ago, a unique element of London’s transport system, after serving Londoners for 46 years.
Since then, the ramp has been used as a location in the 1988 film, The Avengers, starring Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes, a brilliant script sadly mutilated by studio interference in the editing, based on the well-known TV series, and also featured in the story “Paint it Black” by “Charlotte Corday” writer Stephen Walsh and artist Keith Page.
Few Londoners know that the station was once the fulcrum of the capital’s electrified tram network, which was overtaken after the war by the speed and efficiency of the London underground.
Built by London County Council, it was opened in 1906 as part of slum clearance in the Holborn and Aldwych areas and the the Grade II listed structure in Holborn linked the extensive tram networks of north and south London together, carrying passengers between Holborn to Waterloo Bridge. It was enlarged to accommodate double-decker trams in 1929, but was closed in 1952.
It had relatively short active life, closing in 1952, but despite this, the Subway underwent several major upgrades during its time.
In 1953, London Transport used the tramway to store 120 buses and coaches in case they were needed for the Coronation. Part of the southern end of the subway opened to road traffic as the Strand Underpass in 1964.
Surprisingly, more than half of the subway still exists to this day – complete with original features.
Crossrail took over the old tram tunnel in 2012 and used it as a construction site, drilling down to provide additional support as the tunnel boring machines passed beneath that part of London.
A London Transport Museum tour, launched back in 2021 news some of you may have missed, because of the pandemic, will take you inside, explores the remaining tunnel and the former tram station, while you discover its life and times and how it served London.
You’re able to tour the platforms and halls of the Kingsway station, which allowed passengers on double decker trams to interchange between the once-comprehensive networks north and south of the Thames. which closed after World War Two.
Paint it Black
Set mainly in the yellow be-fogged sprawl of 1950s Soho, where, as ever, Something is Afoot, Paint it Black, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page, published in full colour by Time Bomb Comics back in 2015, stars Paraffin Jack McNab, and the girls and boys of V-Cars, getting up to their necks in an epidemic of neck-biting and general vampiric carry-on that threatens to sink Old London Tahn good and proper.
Along the way, the doors of time themselves are will be kicked open and left hanging carelessly on their hinges, as Jack finds himself adrift and askew in a veritable cavalcade of Londons past, present and future.
But there’s always time for a drink, of course, especially with such old and new chums as Thomas deQuincey, Francis Bacon and Tony Hancock. Old Samuel Beckett shows up, too, in a flashback to Jack’s war service and a glimpse into just what started the Only Man What Can Save London along his fateful course.
Unfortunately, Paint it Black is currently out of print, but you might find copies in secondhand stores, comic shops or on internet auction sites.
• The butchered The Avengers film is available on BluRay (current picture on AUK shows Marvel’s Avengers film, but the reviews are all for the film starring Fiennes and Thurman) and DVD – and on Amazon Prime (Amazon Affiliate Links)
John Steed has been called to investigate some very strange goings-on in Her Majesty’s kingdom: the weather seems out of control, foul, deadly-even for England. Someone is controlling it, to bring the world to its knees. Everything points to Sir August De Wynter, former Ministry man, and very rich…
• Charlotte Corday by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page – Project Guide
• News items about the Subway on the “Ian Visits” site
• Subterranea Britannica has a feature on the Kingsway Tram Subway here
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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