Covent Garden tube station

Covent Garden station stands at the corner of Long Acre and James Street in the West End. It serves the area around Covent Garden and sits between Leicester Square and Holborn on the Piccadilly line in London fare zone 1. The street-level concourse is a Grade II listed building designed in the Modern Style. Leslie Green, known for his red ‘Oxblood’ station buildings, created the design. The station opened in 1907 after the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway merged several earlier proposals. In 1929, plans to close the station were considered but never carried out.

The station’s platform walls are lined with yellow and white geometric tiles, unique to Covent Garden. Transport for London replaced the original tiling in 2010, matching the historic pattern exactly. The station is one of the few in central London with access only by lift or a spiral staircase of 193 steps. Four lifts serve street level, but a final flight of stairs makes the station inaccessible for wheelchairs. Posters at the bottom of the staircase remind passengers of the long climb ahead.

The Piccadilly line journey between Leicester Square and Covent Garden is just 260 metres, the shortest gap between any two stations on the network. Night Tube services run on Friday and Saturday nights as part of the Piccadilly line. The ghost of actor William Terriss, murdered in 1897, is said to haunt the station. His last reported sighting was in 1972 near where a bakery once stood before the station was built. The station’s red brick frontage and tiled platforms remain a fine example of early 20th-century design.