Maida Vale

Coordinates: 51°31′39″N 0°11′24″W / 51.5274°N 0.1899°W / 51.5274; -0.1899

Maida Vale is an affluent residential district comprising the northern part of Paddington in west London, west of St John's Wood and south of Kilburn. It is part of the City of Westminster. The name derives from the Hero of Maida inn which used to be on Edgware Road near the Regent's Canal. The pub was named after General Sir John Stuart who was made Count of Maida by King Ferdinand IV of Naples and Sicily after the victory at the Battle of Maida in 1806. The area is mostly residential, and mainly affluent, with many large late Victorian and Edwardian blocks of mansion flats. It is home to the BBC Maida Vale Studios.

Geography

The Maida Vale area is regarded as being bounded by Maida Avenue and the Regent's Canal to the south, Maida Vale Road to the north east, Kilburn Park Road to the north west, and Shirland Road and Blomfield Road to the south west: an area of around 1 square kilometre (0.4 square miles). It makes up most of the W9 postal district. The southern part of Maida Vale at the junction of Paddington Basin with Regent's Canal, with many houseboats, is known as Little Venice. The area to the south-west of Maida Vale, at the western end of Elgin Avenue, was historically known as "Maida Hill", and was a recognised postal district bounded by the Avenues on the west, the Regent's Canal to the south, Maida Vale to the east and Kilburn Lane to the north. Parts of Maida Vale were also included within this. The name of "Maida Hill" had since fallen out of use, although it has been resurrected since the mid-2000s, through the 414 bus route (which terminates on Shirland Road and gives its destination as Maida Hill) and a new street market on the Piazza at the junction of Elgin Avenue and Harrow Road.

Maida Vale (disambiguation)

Maida Vale may refer to:

Maida Vale (album)

Maida Vale is a compilation album by Van der Graaf Generator, containing eight songs from four different recording sessions at Maida Vale Studios for BBC Radio 1 in 1971, 1975 and 1976, three of which were Peel Sessions. It was released in June 1994 on Band of Joy Records.

The versions of "When She Comes" and "Masks" found here were also released as bonus tracks on the 2005 Charisma reissue of World Record.

Track listing

All songs written by Peter Hammill, except where noted.

Personnel

Maida Vale tube station

Maida Vale is a London Underground station in Maida Vale in inner north-west London. The station is on the Bakerloo line, between Kilburn Park and Warwick Avenue stations, and is in Travelcard Zone 2.

The station is 'Grade II' listed building being of architectural and historic interest. In 2009 the station won a National Railway Heritage Award, in the London Regional category, for the successful modernisation of a historic station.

History

Maida Vale opened on 6 June 1915 on Bakerloo tube's extension from Paddington to Queen's Park 5 months after the extension. At the time, it was the first station to be entirely staffed by women. The women continued to work at the Maida Vale station until 1919 when servicemen returning from the war displaced them. The outbreak of World War II again opened up jobs for women. On 6 June 2015, the station celebrated its 100th anniversary as part of the 100 years of women in transport campaign.

Location and layout

The station is located at the junction of Randolph Avenue and Elgin Avenue and has a surface building designed by Underground Electric Railways Company of London's architect Stanley Heaps. He used a standardized design that appears in many station buildings under control of UERL whilst Maida Vale was provided with buildings in the style of the earlier Leslie Green stations but without the upper storey, which was no longer required for housing lift gear. It was one of the first London Underground stations built specifically to use escalators rather than lifts.

London Underground

The London Underground (or simply the Underground or the Tube) is a public rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex. The network is considered the oldest rapid transit system, incorporating the world's first underground railway, the Metropolitan Railway, which opened in 1863 and is now part of the Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines; and the first line to operate underground electric traction trains, the City & South London Railway in 1890, now part of the Northern line. The network has expanded to 11 lines, and in 2014/15 carried 1.305 billion passengers, making the Underground the world's 11th busiest metro system.