Temple tube station

Temple is a London Underground station in the City of Westminster, between Victoria Embankment and Temple Place. It is on the Circle and District lines between Embankment and Blackfriars and is in Travelcard Zone 1. The station entrance is from Victoria Embankment. The station is located close to the boundary with the City of London, and thus, is used by many commuters who work in the west of The City.

The station name was originally The Temple, from the Temple area in the vicinity of Temple Church, the Inns of Court: Inner Temple and the Middle Temple. The definite article in the name fell out of use quite early.

History
The station was opened on 30 May 1870 by the Metropolitan District Railway (MDR; now the District and Circle lines) when the railway extended its line from Westminster to Blackfriars. The construction of the new section of the MDR was planned in conjunction with the building of the Victoria Embankment and was achieved by the cut and cover method of roofing over a shallow trench.

The MDR connected to the Metropolitan Railway (MR, later the Metropolitan Line) at South Kensington and, although the two companies were rivals, each company operated its trains over the other's tracks in a joint service known as the "Inner Circle".

On 1 February 1872, the MDR opened a northbound branch from its station at Earl's Court to connect to the West London Extension Joint Railway (WLEJR, now the West London Line) which it connected to at Addison Road (now Kensington (Olympia)). From that date the "Outer Circle" service began running over the MDR's tracks. The service was run by the North London Railway (NLR) from its terminus at Broad Street (now demolished) in the City of London via the North London Line to Willesden Junction, then the West London Line to Addison Road and the MDR to Mansion House - the new eastern terminus of the MDR.

From 1 August 1872, the "Middle Circle" service also began operations through the station running from Moorgate along the MR's tracks on the north side of the Inner Circle to Paddington then over the Hammersmith & City Railway (H&CR) track to Latimer Road then, via a now demolished link, to the West London Line to Addison Road and the MDR to Mansion House. The service was operated jointly by the H&CR and the MDR.

On 30 June 1900, the Middle Circle service was withdrawn between Earl's Court and Mansion House.

At the beginning of the 20th century early plans for the Great Northern and Strand Railway (later incorporated into the Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway and now part of the Piccadilly Line) included a proposal for the line to continue to Temple. The plan was rejected and the route was ended instead at the now closed Aldwych station, about 200 m to the north.

On 31 December 1908, the Outer Circle service was withdrawn from the MDR tracks.

In 1949, the Metropolitan Line operated Inner Circle route was given its own identity on the tube map as the Circle Line.

Notable local places

 * Temple Church
 * Royal Courts of Justice
 * HMS President
 * HQS Wellington
 * King's College London and the London School of Economics
 * St. Clement Danes
 * St Mary-le-Strand
 * Somerset House
 * Waterloo Bridge

Transport links
London bus routes 388 and night routes N550 and N551.

Trivia

 * 'Temple' is the only name to be shared by an open station on the Paris Métro and a station of the London Underground. However, Arsenal tube station shares its name with a Paris Métro station that closed in 1939.
 * The station is mentioned in Dan Brown's book The Da Vinci Code