The curious history of the London Underground's tiles

Those who travel regularly on the Tube may not be especially enamoured by it. Line closures, signal failures and tourists with backpacks are among the hurdles faced by London commuters, making it all too easy to miss the charms of what is the world’s oldest underground railway in a haze of anger and sleep deprivation.

This morning, I’m travelling on the Bakerloo line – I’ve already been held outside Paddington for ten minutes due to overcrowding and had my foot squashed by a wheelie suitcase – when I look up from my book to check where I am. ‘Regent’s Park’ my brain tells me.

How do I know that? Not from the distinctive Underground roundel that you can find plastered across novelty items throughout the country – the carriage is so packed that I have no chance of spotting that – and not from the announcement that has somehow got ahead of itself and claims we’re at Oxford Circus. I know where I am because of the tiles.

For those that haven’t consciously noticed, almost every underground station in London has its own unique tiling – and my brain has learned to recognise where I am by the different patterns that adorn the stations of my daily commute.

There has been a lot of speculation over the years as to the reasons behind this. Some might remember that a couple of years ago, various newspapers regurgitated a claim by Mental Floss that the tiles were a product of their time – designed to signal different station stops to illiterate travellers.

The theory goes that as many passengers couldn’t read signs, they needed a different way to know where they are. But the underground was first built in 1863 as the Metropolitan Railway (now forming part of the Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines) and according to data, already by 1870, 76 per cent of the UK’s population was literate.

By the time the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (Bakerloo), Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (Hampstead) and the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway (Piccadilly) all opened between 1906 and 1907, the Elementary Education Act of 1880 meant that even more people were literate. All of which appears to debunk this fun theory.

Furthermore, the first line to operate underground electric traction trains was the City & South London Railway (now part of the Northern line) in 1890. “These trains wouldn’t have had windows. They had Gatemen”, says Mike Ashworth, former Designer & Heritage Manager at TfL. “There would have been one at each end and they would have shouted the station name”. In fact, the carriages on the first ‘deep-level line’ were so oppressive, they quickly earned the nickname “padded cells”.

So why was each station conceived with a different design? According to Ashworth: “The honest answer is, we’re not really sure”.

But surely there’s a trail of paperwork that can easily answer the question? Apparently not. It would seem that very little written records remain. This, the former TfL worker speculates, is a result of the financial problems of American investor Charles Yerkes.

After becoming involved in the Underground in 1900, Yerkes was... inventive when it came to funding the railway. “We have very few records of that time”, says Ashworth. “There are no drawings or designs. It’s widely believed that all paperwork was shredded to hide Yerkes’ financial dealings”.

“It could have been that the tilers just turned up and made the different designs themselves”, he says. Although that is a fairly big jump when you consider the logistics. “It’s one of the great mysteries of the Underground.”

But what appears to be beyond rebuke is the fact that there was purpose to the tiling. “They are definitely unique and make each station recognisable”, says Ashworth.

The development of the roundel also suggests that the tiles were originally used to recognise stations. As the first marketing campaigns of the early 20th century kicked in, it was quickly realised that the walls afforded prime advertising space.

Posters were plastered all over the tiles, prompting publicity officer Frank Pick to commission Edward Johnston in 1908 to create the internationally-recognised roundel that still adorns the walls of the Tube today. 

But as the roundels became icons, they were also increasingly targeted as souvenirs – and still are. “Angel is a particularly popular sign for visitors to try and take”, says Ashworth. So room was made for the posters that didn’t completely take over the tiling, much like we see today.

Today, the legacy of the first Tube tilers – be it a result of whimsy or a purposeful act to help riders easily recognise stations in cramped conditions – remains.

“When we refurbish a station, we do what we can to retain its history”, says Ashworth. In his long history of refitting old stations and designing the new, every aspect was carefully considered.

“At Regent’s Park we deliberately recomposed the walls. At Holland Park, we tried to replicate the original pattern as much as possible. If you’re looking for the most intact station, it has to be Holloway Road. Euston Square has all the hallmarks of some of the earliest stations while Swiss Cottage has those big enamel signs”.

Ashworth’s knowledge is seemingly inexhaustible. “The panels of Sherlock Holmes on the Bakerloo line at Baker Street are a more modern design and we wanted a theme that echoed the sentiment of the station and the illustration by Robin Jacques at the Jubilee platform”.

There’s a footprint of art history across our Underground – and 71 stations have buildings which are listed. Some have just failed to notice. Tottenham Court Road is covered in thousands of mosaics from the 1980s by the great pop art pioneer Eduardo Paolozzi, while Southgate looks like something out of a sci-fi flick with its Art Deco design by Charles Holden.

One of the best sites for art lovers is the disused rail platform, lying opposite the District and Circle line platforms, at Gloucester Road. Taking up residence for a year in June 2018 was Heather Phillipson’s ‘my name is lettie eggsyrub’ which is, as the name suggests, a festival of eggs. This space has been used by artists since 2003 when Cindy Sherman erected ten giant self-portraits.

Art on the Underground celebrates the varied and underlying history. If you’ve ever spotted what appear to be black and white mazes and wondered what they are, it has the answer. Celebrating 150 years of the Underground back in 2013, ‘Labyrinth’, an installation by Mark Wallinger is a series of 270 unique maze tiles – and there’s one at each station. Now go and find them...