South Ken Station

It leads to the disused lift shafts, South Kensington used lifts until it was rebuilt for escalators in the seventies. IMO they should be reinstated for step-free access, as they lead directly to both platform levels and directly to the old disused ticket hall, which should be opened again!

I doubt anyone ever envisaged reusing lift shafts for their original purpose. Consider what fills most lift LU shafts these days, e.g. substations, sumps, pump rooms, comms equipment rooms, station operations rooms, offices, switchrooms, storage etc.

I can't think of many sites where the disused lift shafts weren't used for something at one time or another. I wonder just how many passengers realise they are walking across a lift shaft at Moorgate, Oxford Circus or Tottenham Couirt Road for instance when entering or exiting a station or walking within inches of one at Finsbury Park, Earl's Court, Leicester Square, Baker Street, Liverpool Street, Camden Town etc.

The top of the South Kensington lift shafts at street level is where we used to have a comms equipment stores 20 years ago and the top of the shafts at Tottenham Court Road was once used to store cable, that at Chalk Farm to store signal equipment in the 1970s and of course the old Strowger telephone exchanges were built in the shafts at Leicester Square, Baker Street, Earl's Court and Finsbury Park.

I think in my career I entered or worked in most of the disused shafts on the system including those that most passengers wouldn't have a clue ever existed as they are so far from the platforms such as at Euston, Green Park, Hyde Park Corner and such other places as Down Street and the disused Oxford Circus station building.

I think Trafalgar Square is another place where the escalators cut through the old lift shafts, the extant lower portions housing a sump in one and a pump room in the other.

I doubt that the escalators cut across the lift shafts, as that would have meant that South Ken was closed for the time it took to build the escalators.

You may be thinking of Strand (CCE&HR) - the escalator shaft there does cut across the original lift shafts.

Yep - the station was closed for nearly six years (November 1973 to September? 1979, IIRC).

Are you sure you mean south? That would put the lift shafts in the middle of the District Line tracks. I can imagine the upper escalator might come out in the ticket hall slightly to the north of the top end of the lift shaft, but I can't see how south would work.