Bank and Monument stations
Bank and Monument are two interlinked zone 1 London Underground stations, on opposite ends of King William Street in the City of London. The two stations are effectively one station with two separate entrances and names. The complex is sometimes known as the Bank-Monument complex.
Bank is named after the Bank of England, which it is close to. On the Central Line, it is between St. Paul's and Liverpool Street. On the Northern Line, London Bridge and Moorgate. It is the only other station apart from Waterloo on the Waterloo & City Line. It is a terminus for the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), the next station being Shadwell.
The Waterloo & City platforms are connected to the Central Line booking hall by two slightly inclined moving walkways.
Monument, named after the Monument to the Great Fire of London, by which it is situated, is on the Circle and District Lines between Cannon Street and Tower Hill.
History
The first part of the complex to be opened was Monument, in 1884. Next, in 1898, came the Waterloo & City Railway's station, then known as City. The first station to be known as Bank opened in early 1900 when the City and South London Railway (now part of the Northern Line) opened its new extension to Moorgate. As a result of this the earlier terminus, King William Street, was closed. The eastern terminus of the Central London Railway (today's Central Line) followed on July 30, 1900. The deep-level stations were linked by underground passages at an early stage, but the escalator link to Monument had to wait until 1933.
On January 11, 1941 during World War 2 Bank station suffered a direct hit from a German bomb. The roadway - the area surrounded by the Bank of England, the Royal Exchange and the Mansion House - collapsed into the subways and station concourse, killing 56 people.
Bank station became part of the DLR in 1991, bringing with it a connection from the Central Line to Monument without walking down the Northern Line platform.
On Sunday September 7, 2003 Bank station was used for a disaster training exercise, billed as "the most realistic live disaster exercise of its kind". The event, lasting several hours and involving about 500 police, fire, ambulance and London Underground personnel, was intended to prepare the emergency services for mass decontamination in the event of a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack.
Trivia
- London's first public toilet was located close to the Royal Exchange exit of Bank station.
- The Bank of England exit of the station is built into the Bank itself, and is the only grade I listed building on the Underground network.
