Temple is a

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent ceremonial counties of England, counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and He ...

station located at

Victoria Embankment Victoria Embankment is part of the Thames Embankment, a road and river-walk along the north bank of the River Thames in London. It runs from the Palace of Westminster to Blackfriars Bridge in the City of London, and acts as a major thoroughfare ...

in the

City of Westminster The City of Westminster is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and London boroughs, borough in Inner London. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It occupies a large area of cent ...

, close to its boundary with the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...

. It is on the

Circle A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. Equivalently, it is the curve traced out by a point that moves in a plane so that its distance from a given point is const ...

and

District line The District line is a London Underground line running from in the east and Edgware Road in the west to in west London, where it splits into multiple branches. One branch runs to in south-west London and a short branch, with a limited serv ...

s between

Embankment Embankment may refer to: Geology and geography * A levee, an artificial bank raised above the immediately surrounding land to redirect or prevent flooding by a river, lake or sea * Embankment (earthworks), a raised bank to carry a road, railwa ...

and

Blackfriars Blackfriars, derived from Black Friars, a common name for the Dominican Order of friars, may refer to: England * Blackfriars, Bristol, a former priory in Bristol * Blackfriars, Canterbury, a former monastery in Kent * Blackfriars, Gloucester, a f ...

, and is in fare zone 1. The station was opened on 30 May 1870 with the name The Temple, from the Temple area in the vicinity of

Temple Church The Temple Church is a Royal peculiar church in the City of London located between Fleet Street and the River Thames, built by the Knights Templar as their English headquarters. It was consecrated on 10 February 1185 by Patriarch Heraclius of J ...

, and from the

Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional associations for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wal ...

and the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn an ...

, two of the four

Inns of Court The Inns of Court in London are the professional associations for barristers in England and Wales. There are four Inns of Court – Gray's Inn, Lincoln's Inn, Inner Temple and Middle Temple. All barristers must belong to one of them. They have ...

of London. The

definite article An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" and "a(n)" ar ...

in the name fell out of use quite early.

History

The Temple station was opened in the parish of

St. Clement Danes St Clement Danes is an Anglican church in the City of Westminster, London. It is situated outside the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand. Although the first church on the site was reputedly founded in the 9th century by the Danes, the current ...

on 30 May 1870 by the District Railway (DR; now the District line) when the company extended its line from

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Bu ...

to St. Paul's station (now called Blackfriars). The construction of the new section of the DR was planned in conjunction with the building of the

and was achieved by the

cut and cover A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

method of roofing over a shallow trench. The DR connected to the Metropolitan Railway (MR; now the

Metropolitan line The Metropolitan line, colloquially known as the Met, is a London Underground line between in the City of London and and in Buckinghamshire, with branches to in Hertfordshire and in Hillingdon. Printed in magenta on the tube map, the line i ...

) at

South Kensington South Kensington, nicknamed Little Paris, is a district just west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with ...

and, although the two companies were rivals, each company operated its trains over the other's tracks in a joint service known as the "Inner Circle". Temple station look anticlockwise

On 1 February 1872, the DR opened a northbound branch from its station at

Earl's Court Earl's Court is a district of Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London, bordering the rail tracks of the West London line and District line that separate it from the ancient borough of Fulham to the west, the ...

to connect to the West London Extension Joint Railway (WLEJR, now the West London line) which it connected to at

Addison Road station Addison Road–Seat Pleasant is a rapid-transit railway station on the Washington Metro's Blue and Silver Lines. It is operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, who opened it in 1980. It was the eastern end of the Blue Li ...

(now Kensington (Olympia)). From that date the " Outer Circle" service began running over the DR's tracks. The service was run by the

North London Railway The North London Railway (NLR) company had lines connecting the northern suburbs of London with the East and West India Docks further east. The main east to west route is now part of London Overground's North London Line. Other NLR lines fe ...

(NLR) from its terminus at Broad Street (now demolished) in the

via the North London line to

Willesden Junction Willesden Junction is a railway station in Harlesden, north-west London, UK. It is served by both London Overground and London Underground services. History The station developed on three contiguous sites: the West Coast Main Line (WCML) st ...

, then the West London Line to Addison Road and the DR to Mansion House, which was the new eastern terminus of the DR. From 1 August 1872, the " Middle Circle" service also began operations through the station running from

Moorgate Moorgate was one of the City of London's northern gates in its defensive wall, the last to be built. The gate took its name from the Moorfields, an area of marshy land that lay immediately north of the wall. The gate was demolished in 1762, b ...

along the MR's tracks on the north side of the Inner Circle to

Paddington Paddington is an area within the City of Westminster, in Central London. First a medieval parish then a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965. Three important landmarks of the district are Paddi ...

then over the Hammersmith & City Railway (H&CR) track to

Latimer Road Latimer may refer to: Places England * Latimer, Buckinghamshire, a village ** Latimer and Ley Hill, a civil parish that until 2013 was just called "Latimer" * Latimer, Leicester, an electoral ward and administrative division of the city of Leices ...

then, via a now demolished link, to the West London line to Addison Road and the DR to Mansion House. The service was operated jointly by the H&CR and the DR. On 30 June 1900, the Middle Circle service was withdrawn between Earl's Court and Mansion House. At the beginning of the 20th century early plans for the Great Northern and Strand Railway (later incorporated into the Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway and now part of the Piccadilly line) included a proposal for the line to continue to Temple. The plan was rejected and the route was ended instead at the now closed Aldwych station, about to the north. On 31 December 1908, the Outer Circle service was withdrawn from the DR tracks. In 1949, the Metropolitan line-operated Inner Circle route was given its own identity on the

Tube map The Tube map (sometimes called the London Underground map) is a schematic transport map of the lines, stations and services of the London Underground, known colloquially as "the Tube", hence the map's name. The first schematic Tube map was des ...

as the Circle line.

References

External links

London Transport Museum's Photographic Archive
** ** {{District line navbox Circle line (London Underground) stations District line stations King's College London London Underground stations located underground Tube stations in the City of Westminster Former Metropolitan District Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1870 Victoria Embankment