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TheCity and Brixton Railway (C&BR) was an authorised underground railway line in London planned to run fromKing William Street in theCity of London under theRiver Thames toBrixton viaThe Borough,Lambeth andThe Oval. The company was unable to raise funds and the railway was never constructed.
In November 1897, notice was published of aprivate parliamentary bill for an underground railway from the City of London to Brixton.[1] The C&BR plan would have partially utilised the soon-to-be-abandoned tunnels of theCity and South London Railway (C&SLR, now the Bank branch of theNorthern line) between its northern terminus atKing William Street and a point north ofBorough station. The C&SLR was planning a new northern extension toMoorgate and was going to close the poorly sited King William Street station and sections of its two running tunnels under theRiver Thames, replacing them with a new pair of tunnels on a better alignment.
| City and Brixton Railway Act 1898 | |
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| Act of Parliament | |
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| Citation | 61 & 62 Vict. c. lx |
The C&BR's plan was to use the C&SLR's tunnels to a point just south of a new station atLondon Bridge (in direct competition with a station planned there by the C&SLR). South of the C&BR's London Bridge station, the C&BR's route was planned to run in new tunnels parallel with the C&SLR past Borough station, but without a station there. The line was then to diverge westwards to provide stations atSt George's Circus andLambeth Road, then south toKennington Cross, before reaching an interchange atThe Oval with the C&SLR. The line would then have headed south with a station at Lorn Road before reaching its destination atBrixton.[2] The proposals receivedroyal assent on 1 July 1898 as theCity and Brixton Railway Act 1898 (61 & 62 Vict. c. lx).[3]
The details of the route north of London Bridge changed over the course of the next ten years, as did the financial arrangements with the C&SLR. In 1898, the depot was planned to be adjacent to New Camberwell Road just south of the Oval station but this was removed in 1899 from the plans and replaced with a plan for a link to the C&SLR's depot at Stockwell.[4]
Despite a series of new bills to revise the scheme, the C&BR was never able to raise enough finance to start construction. In 1902, two bills were presented to Parliament for the complete or partial abandonment of the railway. Both were dropped before completing their passage through Parliament.[5] Instead, in 1902, the C&SLR took over the company with the intention of modifying the plans but the powers remained unused and eventually lapsed.[6] It was not until almost 70 years later that the Underground reached Brixton with the opening of the final section of theVictoria line in 1971.
