Blake Hall
The immaculately restored Blake Hall station, complete with a short piece of platform, is now a private residence and Epping Ongar Railway trains do not call here. It is seen from an EOR train from North Weald to Ongar passing on 23rd February 2020. The station was opened by the Great Eastern Railway with the extension of the line from Loughton to Ongar on 24th April 1865 and was first served by LUL Central Line tube trains (which always looked odd as they rattled and bounced incongruously through woods and fields) from 18th November 1957. It closed on 2nd November 1981 (the last trains called two days earlier), 13 years before the line beyond Epping to Ongar was closed, on 30th September 1994, the same day as the Piccadilly Line branch from Holborn to Aldwych in central London was closed. Remotely situated, Blake Hall was the least-used station in LUL days, a distinction now held by Roding Valley also on the Central Line. After closure, it is alleged some trains still stopped here unofficially to let people board or alight but once London Transport learned of this they promptly demolished the platform (which has now been partially restored). I remember waiting here for a tube train to Epping in the long hot summer of 1976 and, apart from the ticket clerk, there was only myself and flocks of birds as they flew high and wide over the Essex countryside.
Location: Blake Hall (former)
Original line: Ongar Extension (Great Eastern Railway)
Photographer: David Bosher
Contact photographer: David Bosher
Photosets: Epping Ongar Railway 1981-2021
Date: 23/02/2020
Image number: 72723
Other photographs of Blake Hall on RailScot
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