Friday 5 September 2008

Those Royal Crests on the walls of the underground stations

I was on Swiss Cottage tube platform yesterday and noted that the tiling on the walls was glistening which caused me to notice the details.

I know they are heraldic but does anyone out there know the reason/origin or local connection to the specific tiles? The horse is related to many a supporter in a crest, the Lion in a St Geroge's cross over water of the Thames, the Royal Swan with the crown round the neck and three blades are all clasic symbols from royal crests.

I think there are more embossed tiles than the four I have captured here (my train came along so i ran out of photography time!), but there is something curiously iconic about them.

I also realised that I have a penchant on this blog for Swiss Cottage - it features quite a bit:
http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/05/swiss-cottage-formerly-swiss-tavern.html

http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/06/boxing-fights-at-swiss-cottage.html

I realise that they are all part of the amazingly iconic brand that makes up the London Underground - http://www.brandchannel.com/features_profile.asp?pr_id=224 - and I guess that there is no specific link with Swiss Cottage. That in fact in this instance they relate to the City - perhaps even stations and areas that this line passes through - but I also suspect that there is some very obscure and arcane reason that justified them in the first place. Anyone out there know?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think the three blades come from the County emblem for Middlesex-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Middx_arms.png

Anonymous said...

There is a book by Doug Rose called Tiles of the unexpected, which covers tiling on over 90 tube platforms and associated passage ways etc.