Tower of London tube station

The station was opened on 25 September 1882.^[1] It was the temporary terminus of a short extension of the Metropolitan Railway (the Met) from Aldgate to Trinity Square.^[2] The extension was built by Thomas A. Walker with work commencing on 5 September 1881. During the work at the station site, a section of the Roman London Wall was uncovered and some wooden pipes laid by the New River Company. The station was a quickly constructed wooden building with an ornamental iron roof. It had two side platforms of 300 feet (91 m).^[2] The powers^[a] under which the extension was built required the District Railway (DR) to agree with the Met on the location of stations, but there is no evidence this happened for Tower of London. The DR was already planning for a station just 200 yards (180 m) to the west.^[3]

On 6 October 1884 the Metropolitan and Metropolitan District Joint Railway (also known as the City Lines) was opened to connect the eastern end of the DR at Mansion House to the Met at Aldgate and completed the Circle line.^[4][b] The already-built Met line between Aldgate and Tower of London was purchased by the City Lines joint committee, but the Tower of London station remained with the Met.^[6] The DR refused to sell tickets to the station and it closed on 13 October 1884.^[7] A new joint DR/Met station was built to the west and opened on 6 October 1884 with the name Mark Lane.^[8] It was renamed Tower Hill in 1946. The wooden surface building of the Tower of London station remained until August 1940.^[6] When Tower Hill station was closed and relocated in 1967, the new station was opened on the former site of the Tower of London station.^[9]