Middle Circle

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The Middle Circle was a railway route in London which operated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries over tracks which are now mainly part of the London Underground. Although not actually a circle or even a complete circuit, the route circumnavigated the centre of the Victorian capital and the name was used to reflect its similarity to the existing Inner Circle route with which it partly shared tracks.

[edit] Route

The Middle Circle route was operated by the Hammersmith & City Railway (H&CR) and the Metropolitan District Railway (MDR) over their own tracks and also those of the Metropolitan Railway (MR) and the West London Railway (WLR). The Middle Circle used existing rail lines and shared operations with the other services provided by the railway companies.

The service commenced operations on 1 August 1872. It initially ran between Moorgate Street (now Moorgate) and Mansion House, then the two termini of the unfinished Inner Circle. From Moorgate Street the Middle Circle ran westwards via the MR's tracks on the north side of the Inner Circle to Bishops Road (now Paddington), then the H&CR's tracks to Latimer Road and, via a now demolished link, on to the WLR to reach Addison Road (now Kensington (Olympia)) where it joined the MDR's tracks to Earl's Court and then eastward along the south side of the Inner Circle from Gloucester Road to end at Mansion House.

When the MR extended the north side of the Inner Circle eastward from Moorgate, the Middle Circle followed suit. Bishopsgate (now Liverpool Street) became the terminus on 12 July 1875 and then Aldgate took the role from 4 December 1876.

From 1 July 1900, Middle Circle services were truncated at Earl's Court and that station became the southern terminus. The route was shortened again from 1 February 1905; terminating at Addison Road. On 4 November 1906, the Middle Circle service effectively ended, although MR and MDR trains on other services continued to serve all parts of the route.

Passenger services on the WLR were ended on 19 October 1940 following bomb damage to other stations on the line. The link between Latimer Road and the WLR was closed at the same time and was demolished in the 1960s to make way for the construction of the West Cross Route motorway.

As just one of a number of services operated by the H&CR and MDR, the Middle Circle route did not appear separately on rail maps of the period. Although the service had been discontinued by the time the first coordinated tube maps were produced at the start of the 20th century it is unlikely that the route would have been specifically indicated - the Inner Circle itself was never specifically shown on the map and only began to be shown from 1947 as the Circle Line.