Balham station

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Balham National Rail London Underground
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Balham station east building including shared entrance
Template:Maplink Interactive map of Balham
General information
LocationBalham
Local authorityLondon Borough of Wandsworth
Managed bySouthern
London Underground
OwnerTemplate:Pluralize from textPage Template:Plainlist/styles.css has no content.
Station codeTemplate:Pluralize from textBAL
DfT categoryC2
Number of platforms4 (National Rail)
2 (Underground)
Fare zone3
London Underground annual entry and exit
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2020Template:Tubeexits2020[1]
2021Template:Tubeexits2021[2]
2022Template:Tubeexits2022[3]
2023Template:Tubeexits2023[4]
2024Template:Tubeexits2024[5]
National Rail annual entry and exit
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2020–21Decrease 2.044 million[6]
 Interchange Decrease 0.129 million[6]
2021–22Increase 3.689 million[6]
 Interchange Increase 0.229 million[6]
2022–23Increase 4.176 million[6]
 Interchange Decrease 0.184 million[6]
2023–24Increase 5.213 million[6]
 Interchange Increase 0.238 million[6]
2024–25Increase 5.955 million[6]
 Interchange Increase 0.267 million[6]
Railway companies
Original companyLondon, Brighton and South Coast Railway (National Rail)
City and South London Railway (London Underground)
Pre-groupingLondon, Brighton and South Coast Railway
Post-groupingSouthern Railway
Key dates
1 December 1856first station opened as Balham Hill
1863present station opened (LB&SCR)
6 December 1926Opened (C&SLR)
14 October 1940Closed for repairs (Underground)
12 January 1941Reopened (Underground)
Listed status
Listing gradeII (Underground station)
Entry number1225887[7]
Added to list16 June 1987; 39 years ago (1987-06-16)
Other information
External linksTemplate:Tube station info link
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Balham (/ˈbæləm/) is an interchange station in south-west London. It is located in central Balham in the London Borough of Wandsworth for London Underground and National Rail services.

The station is formed of a range of underground entrances for the Underground's Northern line and a shared entrance with its National Rail station component. The tube can be accessed on each side of the Balham High Road (A24); National Rail on the south side of the road leading east, where the track is on a mixture of light-brick high viaduct and earth embankment, quadruple track and on a brief east–west axis.

On the National Rail network it is 4 miles 52 chains (7.5 km) from London Victoria.

It is in London fare zone 3. The conjoined stations are owned and operated separately with different ticket machines and gatelines.

National Rail station

File:Balham station mainline northbound slow platform look north.JPG
Platforms looking west towards Wandsworth Common

The National Rail station is on the Brighton Main Line, four stops from London Victoria. On a north–south route, the tracks pass through Balham on an approximate east–west axis, with Victoria towards the west. The station is managed by Southern. The platforms are on embankment between bridges over Balham High Road and Bedford Hill. Access to the platforms is via an underpass beneath them. There are four tracks and four platforms.[8] The station is between Wandsworth Common and either Streatham Hill, Streatham Common or Mitcham Eastfields.

History

The West End of London and Crystal Palace Railway opened a station named Balham Hill on 1 December 1856.[9]

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File:Balham Station, 1862 - Stanford's Library Map of London.png
Original location, 1862
File:Balham Station, OSMap.png
Rebuilt location, 1895
Balham station

The original station was on the west side of Balham High Road; it was re-sited by the LB&SCR in 1863 as part of works to widen the line, and improve the route between East Croydon and Victoria.[10] Further remodelling of the line was undertaken in 1890 and 1897 to increase capacity.[11] It was named Balham then renamed Balham and Upper Tooting on 9 March 1927, reverting to Balham on 6 October 1969.[9]

The lines through the station to Crystal Palace were electrified in 1911,[12][page needed] by means of the LB&SCR 'Elevated Electric' overhead system. Work on electrifying the remaining services through the station had begun in 1913 but was interrupted by the First World War and not completed until 1925.[13] By this time the LB&SCR had been absorbed into the Southern Railway following the Railways Act 1921. In 1925 the Southern Railway decided to adopt a third rail electrification system and the lines through the station were converted between June 1928 and September 1929.[14]

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File:Impressions of Balham Relief (Detail).jpg
Impressions of Balham
one of four bronze reliefs

The station has a high brick wall along Balham Station Road on which four cold cast bronze reliefs are mounted and titled "Impressions of Balham". These depict local residents and everyday scenes. They were conceived and constructed by Christine Thomas and Julia Barton and installed in 1991 for Wandsworth Borough Council.[15]

London Underground station

The London Underground station opened on 6 December 1926 as part of the Morden extension of the City and South London Railway south from Clapham Common. The line and other stations on the extension had opened earlier, on 13 September 1926.[16][page needed] The station is between Clapham South and Tooting Bec stations on the Northern line.

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East building
West building
Underground station

Along with the other stations on the Morden extension, the building was designed by architect Charles Holden. They were Holden's first major project for the Underground.[17] He was selected by Frank Pick, general manager of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL), to design the stations after he was dissatisfied with designs produced by the UERL's own architect, Stanley Heaps.[18] The Underground station buildings are listed Grade II.[7]

The station has entrances on the east and west sides of Balham High Road linked by a pedestrian subway. The modernist designs of each building take the form of double-height screens clad in white Portland stone with three-part glazed screens in the centres of the façades divided by columns of which the capitals are three-dimensional versions of the Underground roundel. The central panel of the screens contain a large version of the roundel. Balham is the only station on the Morden branch of the Northern line conjoined to a National Rail station.[citation needed]

Second World War

During the Second World War, Balham was one of many deep tube stations designated for use as a civilian air raid shelter. On the evening of 14 October 1940, a 1,400 kg semi-armour piercing fragmentation bomb fell on the road above the northern end of the platform tunnels,[19][20] creating a large crater into which an out-of-service bus then crashed. The northbound platform tunnel partially collapsed and was filled with earth and water from the fractured water mains and sewers above, which also flowed through the cross-passages into the southbound platform tunnel, with the flooding and debris reaching to within 100 yards (91 m) of Template:Stl. According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), sixty-six people in the station were killed[21] – although some sources report 64 shelterers and four railway staff were killed,[22] and more than seventy injured. The damage at track level closed the line to traffic between Template:Stl and Template:Stl. The closed section and station were reopened on 12 January 1941.[23]

File:Balham tube plaque101014.jpg
The second memorial plaque in the entrance hall, now replaced
The memorial plaque unveiled on 16 October 2016

In October 2000 a memorial plaque commemorating this event was placed in the station's ticket hall. It stated that 64 people died, which differed from the CWGC register at the time, and other sources. On 14 October 2010 this was replaced with a new commemorative plaque which does not state the number of fatalities.[24] This second plaque was again replaced with an official memorial stone in Welsh slate commissioned by London Underground and that was unveiled on 14 October 2016.[25] The two removed plaques were given to the London Transport Museum.

The bombing of the station during the war is briefly mentioned in Ian McEwan's 2001 novel Atonement, while the 2007 film based on the book depicts the station's flooding, in which a main character is killed. A character dates the event incorrectly (September in the novel; 15 October in the film). The film also refers to the fracturing of gas mains, as well as water. The bombing of the station is also featured in the children's novel Billy's Blitz by Barbara Mitchelhill when Billy and his family are sheltering in the tube station on the night of 14 October 1940. Ben Aaronovitch's 2012 novel, Whispers Under Ground, also mentions the flooding.[26]

A radio documentary exploring the background to the bombing and events on the day was broadcast on Riverside Radio to mark the 80th anniversary of the bomb on 14 October 2020.

Director Steve McQueen made a 2024 film, Blitz, about the wartime bombing of London (the Blitz), depicting and partly inspired by this event.[27]

It has been proposed to build a Crossrail 2 station interchange at Balham station as an alternative to Tooting Broadway station.[28]

Services

National Rail

All National Rail services at Balham are operated by Southern using Class 377 EMUs.

The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is:[29]

During the peak hours, the station is served by an additional half-hourly service between London Victoria and Sutton via Norbury. On Saturday evenings (after approximately 18:45) and on Sundays, there is no service south of Dorking to Horsham.

London Underground

London Underground services at Balham are served by the Northern line.

The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is:[30]

During the peak hours, the service is increased to up to 22 tph in each direction, including trains that run via Charing Cross.

Preceding station National Rail National Rail Following station
Southern
Southern
Southern
Southern
Preceding station   LUL   Following station
Clapham South
Template:Smalldiv 		style="background:#Template:Rcr; color:inherit; border-left: 0px none; border-right: 0px none; border-top:1px #aaa solid; border-bottom:0px none;" |   Northern line style="background:#Template:Rcr; color:inherit; border-left: 0px none; border-right: 0px none; border-top:1px #aaa solid; border-bottom:0px none;" |   Tooting Bec
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Connections

London Buses routes 155, 249, 255, 315, 355 and night route N155 serve the station.[31]

References

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  1. ^ Template:Citation LU usage 2020
  2. ^ Template:Citation LU usage 2021
  3. ^ Template:Citation LU usage 2022
  4. ^ Template:Citation LU usage 2023
  5. ^ Template:Citation LU usage 2024
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Estimates of station usage". Rail statistics. Office of Rail Regulation. Archived from the original on 19 June 2025. Please note: Some methodology may vary year on year.
  7. ^ a b Script error: No such module "Template wrapper".
  8. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Balham Station Map". National Rail. Retrieved 2 October 2016.
  9. ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Butt, R.V.J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations. Yeovil: Patrick Stephens Ltd. p. 23. ISBN 1-85260-508-1. R508.
  10. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Turner, John Howard (1978). The London Brighton and South Coast Railway 2: Establishment and Growth. Batsford. pp. 126–129, 238–239. ISBN 0-7134-1198-8.
  11. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Turner, John Howard (1978). The London Brighton and South Coast Railway 3: Completion and Maturity. Batsford. pp. 81–84, 141–149. ISBN 0-7134-1389-1.
  12. ^ Southern Electric by G.T. Moody
  13. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Moody, G.T. (1968). Southern Electric 1909-1968. Ian Allan. pp. 7, 23.
  14. ^ Moody, (1968) p. 25.
  15. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Impressions of Balham". artuk.org. Art UK.
  16. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Rose, Douglas (1999). The London Underground, A Diagrammatic History. Douglas Rose/Capital Transport. ISBN 1-85414-219-4.
  17. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Martin, Andrew (2013) [2012]. Underground Overground. Profile Books. p. 186. ISBN 978-1-84668-478-4.
  18. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Orsini, Fiona (2010). Underground Journeys: Charles Holden's designs for London Transport (PDF). V&A + RIBA Architecture Partnership. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 March 2012. Retrieved 14 February 2015.
  19. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."The London Blitz 1940–1941". Imperial War Museum. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  20. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Lennon, Troy (14 October 2015). "People escaped WWI bomb blast on Balham Tube station only to die in the crush to escape". Daily Telegraph (Australia). Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  21. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Casualty List for Balham". cwgcuser.org.uk. Retrieved 21 January 2008.
  22. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Croome; Jackson (2003). Rails Through the Clay. Capital. p. 275.
  23. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Northern Line, Dates". Clive's Underground Line Guides. Archived from the original on 16 January 2008. Retrieved 21 January 2008.
  24. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."War Memorial: Balham Underground Railway Station Air Raid (1) (WMR-52421)". Imperial War Museum. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
  25. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Balham Station bombing – 3". London Remembers. Retrieved 14 October 2020.
  26. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Aaronovitch, Ben (2012). Whispers Under Ground. Rivers of London. Vol. 3. New York: Del Rey. p. 220. ISBN 9780345524614.
  27. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Thorpe, Vanessa (15 September 2024). "'Not many people know what happened': covered up London Blitz tragedy is inspiration for Steve McQueen's new film". The Observer.
  28. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Crossrail 2 factsheet: Wimbledon to Clapham Junction" (PDF). TfL. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 March 2016.
  29. ^ Table 170, 171, 172, 176, 180 National Rail timetable, December 2023
  30. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Northern Line Timetable". Transport for London. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
  31. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Balham Station". TfL. Retrieved 24 June 2022.

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