Primrose Hill Tunnel

Primrose Hill Tunnel

1837 watercolour engraving of the eastern portal before duplication
Overview
Line	West Coast Main Line
Location	Primrose Hill, Camden, London, England
System	National Rail
Operation
Work begun	1834
Opened	1838
Owner	Network Rail
Technical
Design engineer	Robert Stephenson and William Budden
Length	1,164 yards (1,064 m)
No. of tracks	Double track in each bore
Track gauge	Standard gauge
Electrified	25 kV AC OHLE
Listed Building – Grade II
Official name	Primrose Hill Tunnels (Western Entrance)
Designated	14 May 1974
Reference no.	1246989
Listed Building – Grade II*
Official name	Primrose Hill Tunnels (Eastern Portals)
Designated	14 May 1974
Reference no.	1329904

Primrose Hill Tunnel is a 1,164-yard (1,064 m) railway tunnel on the West Coast Main Line, approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) from Euston station. It is located in South Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden, just north of Primrose Hill park and consists of two bores: the slow line to the northern side, driven through the London clay by the engineer Robert Stephenson for the London and Birmingham Railway in 1838, and the fast line to its south, added by the London and North Western Railway in 1879. The original tunnel's Italianate portals were designed by William Budden and later replicated for the fast line. The western portals have been listed at Grade II^[1] and the eastern at Grade II* since 1974.^[2]

As the first railway tunnel in London, Historic England considers it to be of special historic interest, as well as because "it was the first nationally to negotiate the issue of competing claims for the use of land in an urban context; and the first tunnel to treat one of its portals architecturally".^[2]