(THE CIRCLES [continued(3)])[29th March 1987]

[Redbook3:54-55][19870329:1210c](THE CIRCLES [continued(3)])[29^th March 1987]

19870329.1210(BST)

[continued]

I love these expressions: 'Inner Circle' and 'Outer Circle'. Long before all this occurred to me, I found the names tremendously evocative – of something unknown. Regent's Park in London has them still; but when I was very young, there were still some old people around who who referred to the Circle Line of the London Underground as the Inner Circle. The reason for this was that there was at one time a route or service known as the Outer Circle, which weaved its way through the shallow cuttings and over the chimney pots of the Victorian suburbs. I believe its route varied according to the politics and traffic of the independent railway companies whose lines it used; I am not sure that it ever actually achieved full circlehood in anything but name. There may even have been a Middle Circle, projected or rudimentary, at one time: I am not sure).

Public transport lobbyists and enthusiasts have occasionally called for the restoration of the Outer Circle along one route or another, to link the suburbs; it could probably be re-instated with relatively little expense (although the lower Thames crossing could prove a problem), but no one has ever really been able to demonstrate convincingly a need for such a service today.*

*[An outer circle route along roughly the lines originally proposed, if memory is correct, for the Middle Circle was created by a new link line in the Bishopsgate area of inner East London (on the edge of the City) in 2010. However, the circular service made possible by this link was not introduced at the time, and at about the same time the Circle Line (or service) of London Underground was withdrawn, although the spurs or link lines which made it possible remained in place.]

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