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Oval
Station entrance
Oval Location of Oval in Greater London
Location	Oval, London
Local authority	Lambeth
Managed by	London Underground
Owner	London Underground
Number of platforms	2
Fare zone	2
London Underground annual entry and exit
2020	3.31 million[2]
2021	3.13 million[3]
2022	5.36 million[4]
2023	5.62 million[5]
2024	5.41 million[6]
Key dates
18 December 1890	Opened (C&SLR)
29 November 1923[1]	closed for rebuilding
1 December 1924	reopened
Other information
External links	TfL station info page
Coordinates	51°28′55″N0°06′45″W / 51.4819°N 0.1125°W /51.4819; -0.1125
London transport portal

Oval is aLondon Underground station in theLondon Borough of Lambeth. It is on theNorthern line betweenKennington andStockwell stations, and is inLondon fare zone 2.^[7] The station opened on 18 December 1890 as part of theCity and South London Railway and is named afterThe Oval cricket ground, which it serves.

The station is located at the junction ofKennington Park Road (heading north-east), Camberwell New Road (south-east), Clapham Road (south west) and Harleyford Street (north west) and is about 500 yards from The Oval cricket ground.^[8] Also close by areKennington Park and the imposingSt Mark's Church.^[8]

This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding to it.(February 2015)

The City and South London Railway opened to passengers between Stockwell andKing William Street on 18 December 1890,^[9] and was both the first standard gauge tube and the first railway to employ electric traction in London.^[10] To avoid disturbance of surface buildings the construction of the tube was shield-driven at deep level,^[11] and much of the work was done via shafts at station sites which later contained the passenger lifts.^[12]

Oval tube station was the intended site of one of theattempted London bombings on 21 July 2005.

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The Oval station, opened as Kennington Oval, was designed byThomas Phillips Figgis^[13] with elements of earlyArts and Crafts and neo-classical detailing. The structure was made distinctive by a lead-covered dome with cupola lantern and weathervane which housed some of the lift equipment; the main part of the building was of red brick. The station building was rebuilt in the early 1920s when the line was modernised and was refurbished during the late 1990s at street level with a modern tiling scheme inside and out, adding a full-length glazed canopy and giving the station a more modern look. Reflecting its proximity to the cricket ground, the internal decorative tiling features large images of cricketers in various stances.

In 2004, station staff started to use a whiteboard to display a handwritten "thought of the day" from theTao Te Ching for the benefit of passengers. This idea then spread to other Underground stations such asNorth Greenwich, where the content relates to events at the nearbyO2 Arena.^[14]

Oval station is on the Morden branch of the Northern line betweenKennington to the north andStockwell to the south. Train frequencies vary throughout the day, but generally operate every 3–6 minutes between 06:03 and 00:27 in both directions.^[15][16]

Preceding station	London Underground			Following station
Kennington towardsEdgware,High Barnet orMill Hill East		Northern line Morden branch		Stockwell towardsMorden

London Bus routes3,36,59,133,155,159,185,333,415, and436 and night routesN3,N109,N133,N136, andN155 serve the station.^[17][18]

The station was mocked up by the television seriesSurvivors: The Lights of London parts 1 & 2, broadcast onBBC One on 14 and 21 April 1976. However, the filmed site was actually atCamden Town deep-level shelter.^[19]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toOval tube station.

• 
  Station interior
• 
  Northbound platform looking south
• 
  Southbound platform looking north. It is directly below the northbound platform.
• 
  Station roundel with a direction of the way out

• Badsey-Ellis, Antony (2005).London's Lost Tube Schemes. Capital Transport.ISBN 1-85414-293-3.
• Badsey-Ellis, Antony (2016).Building London's Underground: From Cut-and Cover to Crossrail. Capital Transport.ISBN 978-1-8541-4397-6.
• Rose, Douglas (1999) [1980].The London Underground, A Diagrammatic History (7th ed.). Douglas Rose/Capital Transport.ISBN 1-8541-4219-4.
• Wolmar, Christian (2005) [2004].The Subterranean Railway: How the London Underground Was Built and How It Changed the City Forever. Atlantic Books.ISBN 1-84354-023-1.

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• London Transport Museum Photographic Archive
  • Original Oval station, 1915
  • Station after 1920s rebuild, 1934

• Rail transport stations in London fare zone 2
• Northern line stations
• Tube stations in the London Borough of Lambeth
• Former City and South London Railway stations
• Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1890
• Kennington
• London Underground Night Tube stations
• 1890 establishments in England

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