Bank and Monument stations

Bank and Monument stations form a single transport complex in the heart of the City of London. Bank station takes its name from the nearby Bank of England while Monument station is named for the Monument to the Great Fire of London. The two stations sit at Bank Junction, a busy road crossing where Threadneedle Street, Lombard Street and King William Street meet. Bank station serves the Central, Northern and Waterloo & City lines as well as the Docklands Light Railway. Monument station handles the Circle and District lines. The stations have been linked since 1933, allowing passengers to move between them without going above ground. The complex is one of the busiest on the London Underground network and once ranked worst in passenger surveys. After seven years of work, a major upgrade finished in 2023 added 31 escalators and four moving walkways, the most of any Underground station. The upgrade also improved connections to the Docklands Light Railway, which arrived in the 1990s. During the Second World War the Central line ticket hall was hit by a bomb, collapsing the roadway and killing 56 people sheltering below. A statue of tunnelling engineer James Henry Greathead stands outside the station beside the Royal Exchange. Inside, passengers find curved platforms on the Central line caused by the need to avoid the Bank of England’s vaults. The Waterloo & City line platforms once featured long moving pavements installed in 1960, one of the few such walkways on the system. The original lift entrance from 1900 still serves the Northern line, accessed through the crypt of St Mary Woolnoth after bodies were moved and the church underpinned. A Greathead tunnelling shield uncovered during the 1990s DLR works is now part of a passageway between lines. Above ground, the Royal Exchange and Mansion House frame the busy junction where the stations lie.