The new London Overground line names and colours were introduced across the London rail network in November 2024
The station opened in 1860[3][page needed] as Kentish Town on the Hampstead Junction Railway from Camden Road to Old Oak Common Junction south of Willesden Junction. It was renamed Gospel Oak in 1867 when a new station more appropriately named Kentish Town was opened about a mile south on the same line (that station is now Kentish Town West). Due to financial constraints a planned connection from the Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway to Gospel Oak station was not added until 4 June 1888, some 20 years after that railway opened, and then without a link to the North London line due to other companies' opposition.
The station was rebuilt by the London Midland Region of British Railways in 1954.[4]
From 1926 to 1981, the station was not a passenger interchange: passenger trains left the Barking line at Tufnell Park and descended the gradient to Kentish Town station. In 1981 that passenger service from Barking was diverted from Kentish Town to Gospel Oak with the terminal platform rebuilt on the north side of the existing station.[5]
The North London Line through Gospel Oak was electrified on the fourth-rail 660 volt DC system in 1916 by the LNWR: in the 1970s that was changed to 750 volt DC third rail. In 1996, the line from Willesden through Gospel Oak to Camden was closed during conversion to 25 kv AC overhead.
To allow four-car trains to run on the London Overground network, the North London Line between this station and Stratford closed from February 2010 to 1 June 2010, for installing a new signalling system and for extending 30 platforms. Until May 2011, there was a reduced service with no services on Sundays while the upgrade work continued.[6]
Design
The platforms are high above street level with stairs and two lifts, one serving westbound trains, and one serving eastbound trains and the Suffragette line.[7] The Mildmay line has two platforms and the Suffragette line has a short terminal platform north of which are two separate through freight tracks which join the NLL just west of the station. Oyster ticket barriers are in operation.
During the late evenings, the services to and from Clapham Junction do not operate and the services to and from Barking Riverside are reduced to 3 tph.
The two brick skew arch bridges by which the trains cross Gordon House Road are shown in the cover photograph of the 1997 Gospel Oak EP by Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor.
