On Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:42:33 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:


On 23 Mar, 16:26, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:24:36 +0000, Robert
wrote:

On 2009-03-23 05:54:03 +0000, Charles Ellson said:

[snip]

It was in the early 1960s IIRC, possibly the same time that Aldersgate
became Barbican so books and magazines published around that time
ought to have some mention.

I can remember this work being done while I was at University in London
during the early 60s. IIRC there was a large open space between
Aldersgate and Moorgate, round the edge of which the railway lines ran.
The space was, I think, being used as a car park (possibly one of the
sites where NCP started) and was almost certainly a bomb site which was
being/had been cleared. The opportunity was taken to remove a curve in
the line which was no longer necessary. There may have been other
reasons as well.

It was IMU more a localised route diversion than just the removal of a
curve, the Luftwaffe having possibly done the demolition work that the
railway hadn't originally been allowed to do.

http://www.closedlines.free-online.co.uk/gb_ew_x.htm
(look for "Aldersgate")
seems to put the date on the second half of 1965 for the old route
being abandoned. I haven't got an older map to compare with but ISTR
the capital also took the opportunity to annexe a few acres of extra
land from Islington at the same time; if so, then this would put some
of the boundary in different positions on any "before" and "after"
maps that might turn up.


With regards to the potential 'annexation' of part of LB Islington,
ITYM "the City [of London]", rather than "the capital" - London has
never officially been allocated the status of being the capital of the
UK and/or England, it is instead the de-facto capital city - but
anyway that's London in the sense of the wider city, as opposed to
specifically the City of London (i.e. the square mile).

The area "wider" than the City of London is not a city (apart from
Westminster, but that is adjacent not included) far less the capital
city. The City of London has been a city "since time immemorial" and
became the capital when Winchester lost the job.