East Finchley Tube Station & the Archer in London, England

East Finchley is in an area now in North London which was once adjacent to both the hunting ground of the Bishop of London and Finchley Common, over which locals held commoners rights including hunting. The Archer, then, is an enduring symbol of the settlement which the statue might relate to although it has been suggested that it was a purely decorative object and all other Archer links followed from it. These links include the local newspaper which is called "The Archer" and a school close to the tube station is named the Archer Academy. Also, tube drivers on the Northern Line, which serves East Finchley, wear an archer motif tie pin as part of their uniform. The East Finchley Tube Station and the Archer statue were both designed by icons of inter war years design. The station was one of 15 designed by Architect Charles Holden in the art deco/modernist style (also called Streamline Moderne) for parts the London Underground system and the statue of a crouching archer which adorns it was created by, architectural sculptor, Eric Aumonier. The station and sculpture are highly typical of 1930s design, highlighting a period of optimism after the Great War and before WW2 was really contemplated in Europe. Both the architect and the architectural sculptor were heavily influenced by Frank Pick, at the time general manager of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (known universally as "The Underground"). The Archer seems to have just shot his arrow towards the mouth of the nearby tunnel which runs 17.3 miles, under the Thames to Morden in south London. At the time it was built it was the longest tunnel in the world and remains the longest in the UK. The sculpture was made from beech wood, with a metal skeleton, then clad overall with beaten sheet lead. It was commissioned in early 1939 as part of a series to adorn the local tube stations but it was finished in 1940, for the British, at the hight of WW2, and was the only one of the series to be completed. It is clearly greatly influenced by cubism and fits well with the art deco/moderniste host location. The station's most dominant art deco features are the iconic semi-circular glazed stairways leading to an enclosed bridge over the tracks. This is not a passenger footway between platforms (this passes below the tracks) but is occupied by staff offices. The two rounded frontages and a plethora of rounded brick walls in the building are very evocative of the art deco residential buildings in London of the time, such as Florin Court, which was the film location for Poirot's apartment block in the very successful TV series. The tube system, particularly outside central London, is blessed with great art deco architecture but East Finchley provided one of the best examples and, in addition to the building, it has both the, unique, Archer and the entrance to the longest rail tunnel in the UK.

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