Victoria station is a London Underground and railway station in London, in the City of Westminster. It is in Travelcard Zone 1.
The eastern side, comprising platforms 1 - 8 services Kent, and the western side comprising platforms 9 - 19 is the terminus for lines running from Surrey and Sussex, including Gatwick Airport and Brighton. Although this split is still generally held to, there are various crossovers allowing trains to access any platform. As the western "Brighton" side is the busier of the two, slight disruption on that line sometimes results in some of its suburban services using the eastern "Chatham" station.
The London Underground station lies to the north of the mainline station concourse. There are two ticket halls. The hall closer to the mainline station serves the Victoria Line. The other, further north along a tunnel, serves the District and Circle Lines.
Victoria Coach Station is half a mile south-west of the railway stations. It is the main London coach terminal and serves all parts of the UK.
History
Entrance to Victoria Station
Victoria station was originally two stations, the eastern one for the London, Chatham and Dover Railway and the western for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. The London, Chatham and Dover station is in a Edwardian style with baroque elements, designed by Alfred Bloomfield and completed in the 1908-10 period. The London, Brighton, and South Coast building, completed in 1898, is in a similar style, albeit in red brick rather than white stone. These stations replaced two built in 1858 and 1861.
The stations were merged in 1924 when a passage from one to the other was created by removing part of a screen wall. The architecture of the two stations is clearly visible from outside. The station was redeveloped internally in the 1980s, with the addition of shops within the concourse, and above the western platforms.
The Victoria underground line didn't come to Victoria Station until the third phase of construction of the line - the station's platforms were opened on March 7, 1969, six months after the Victoria line had started running in outer London.
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