| Summary : Gants Hill station was famous for its long and lofty concourse between the tube level platforms, 150ft long and 20 ft high, with a domed roof supported by two rows of eight tiled columns. Such a concourse was a useful device to clear passengers quickly from the platforms, valuable at stations where there were as many passengers boarding as alighting. At suburban Gants Hill it was a little extravagant, and the idea seems to have stemmed from a 1935 report by Underground engineers on the Moscow Metro, with a London Transport decision that it must have a Moscow type station somewehre. The escalators rose 32ft 3in from one end of the concourse to the sub-surface ticket hall, which had subway connections to ten points round the large road intersection above. Chrome yellow bands added colour to the bicsuit-cream tiling. Construction began in 1937 and the station opened with the extension to Newbury Park on 14th December 1947, the platform-level concourse coming into use on 4th April 1948. The ticket hall was located beneath a roundabout on Eastern Avenue. The lower levels were refurbished in the 1980s, with original finishings, fittings and furniture replaced. |