Road · Camden Town · NW1 ·

JANUARY

1

2000

Camden Town

Camden Town tube station is a major junction on the Northern Line and one of the busiest stations on the London Underground network. It is particularly busy at weekends with tourists visiting Camden Market and Camden High Street.

Camden is well-known for Camden Market which is a major tourist attraction, particularly busy at weekends, selling variety of fashion, antiques, lifestyle and bizarre goods; they (and the surrounding shops) are popular with young people, in particular those searching for alternative clothing.

It is an area popular with overseas students who come to Camden to learn English and find a job in one of the local bars or restaurants. The oldest established language school is Camden College of English, which is located at the Chalk Farm side of the market.

The Regent's Canal runs through the north end of Camden Town and is a popular walk in summer.

Camdem Town tube station began life as part of the original route of the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (CCE&HR) (now part of the Northern Line). As the line here branched into two routes, to Hampstead and to Highgate, the design of the station was rather unusual, shaped like a V. The line to Hampstead (now the Edgware Branch) is under Chalk Farm Road; the line to Highgate (now the High Barnet branch) is under Kentish Town Road. With the narrowness of the roads above, and the necessity to keep directly beneath them to avoid having to pay compensation to landowners during construction, on both lines the northbound platform is directly above the southbound one.

At the apex of the V is a junction allowing northbound trains to take either of the branches north, and likewise allow the trains south from the branches to join the single southbound track. This resulted in four connecting tunnels. When the CCE&HR and City & South London Railway lines were joined together after the City & South London Line became part of London Underground, a short extension from the Euston terminus of the City & South London was built to connect with each of the two northerly branches. This added another four tunnels to the junction, making it the most complex junction on the network.