Two photographs tell the story of London Underground's deepest station which was built almost 120 years ago.
The arrival of the fast expanding Tube network to Hampstead brought fresh connections to a hitherto quiet village - giving residents rapid transit into the heart of London and promoting suburban expansion further north to Golders Green and beyond.
Hampstead was no stranger to visitors - from the 18th century crowds arriving to take its famous mineral waters, to the working classes who flocked to the Heath on bank holidays in a phenomenon dubbed 'appy 'ampstead.
Both photos are in the collection of Burgh House, Hampstead - the first shows the station site around 1900, while the second depicts the station around the time it was opened on June 22 1907 by the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway.
It sits on the junction of Heath Street and Hampstead High Street and the original tiled signs on the platform walls still carry the name of the station's proposed name of Heath Street - before it was changed.
Those platforms are a whopping 58.5 metres or 192 feet below ground level - the lift shaft reaches 55 metres, or 180 feet, making it the deepest on the Underground, and it has the network's longest staircase with 320 steps spiralling up to the street.
The station's depth is linked to Hampstead’s position on one of London’s highest hills, rather than to any decision about how far underground to build.
The Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead route was first planned in 1893 but work was delayed for a decade before American financier Charles Tyson Yerkes took over the project in 1900.
He changed the plan into an electric underground railway, but because the station lies beneath a hill, it meant the tunnels had to pass underneath it and lifts had to be installed to transport passengers to the platforms.
Hampstead was one of 50 designed by architect Leslie Green across the Tube network between 1903 and 1907.
With their glazed oxblood terracotta tiles and semi-circular first floor windows they have become an icon of London design.
Today Hampstead station serves the Edgware branch of the Northern line, between Golders Green and Belsize Park, and lifts remain the main route between the platforms and the street.
The spiral staircase provides an emergency alternative, although signs advise passengers not to use it because climbing is akin to walking up a 15-storey building.
The line was also intended to continue north to a station called North End, beneath Hampstead Heath but the land purchased in the hope of developing around the new station ended up being turned into the Hampstead Heath extension.
The station - known as the Bull and Bush after the famous pub on North End - never opened to the public and is one of the Underground’s ghost stations.
Hampstead however has remained in service, preserving its place at the deepest point on the tube network.
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