London Underground Station Map - Quad Royal - 1950
Designed by HC Beck. Printed by Waterlow & Sons for London Transport. Print Code: 350/603B/5000(R). Quad Royal 127cm x 101cm (50 x 40 inches). Condition: A superb bright example. Backed to linen with some minor edge restoration.
This iconic London Underground ‘station map’ - as displayed on platforms and in ticket halls - is one of the most sought-after iterations of Harry Beck’s iconic London Underground diagram. Despite the print run of 5000 (as indicated by the print code), very few examples have survived, with most discarded upon the release of a new map. Even the London Transport Museum doesn’t carry this particular March 1950 printing.
Between 1949-1950 a long-proposed extension of the Bakerloo Line was shown on the map from Elephant & Castle to Camberwell - Despite being in planning for nearly 20 years, work never began and Elephant remains the terminus of the Bakerloo to this day. Two other proposed extensions on the Northern Line had featured on the map as far back at 1937 but due to WII and post-war inflation these projects were never completed.
Beck’s Favourite Design
In the book ‘Mr Beck’s Underground Map’, Ken Garland writes about the 1949-1950 design “..He considered this to be perhaps the best of all versions of the Diagram, and it is not difficult to see why he thought so… At last able to eradicate all those features with which he had been unwillingly saddled by others. He had incorporated a most welcome touch of yellow for the Circle Line.. and achieved the degree of rectilinearity he believed appropriate to the Diagram as he had always conceived it.”
So Beck’s map was finally as he had always wanted it to look. Since 1937, the Metropolitan and District Lines shared the same colour (Green). The 1949-1950 design saw the Met’s original purple reinstated and, together with first appearance of the Circle Line in yellow, it makes for a much more attractive and vibrant map.
FREE UK DELIVERY. Non-UK Delivery available, please request a quotation
London Underground Station Map - Quad Royal - 1950
Designed by HC Beck. Printed by Waterlow & Sons for London Transport. Print Code: 350/603B/5000(R). Quad Royal 127cm x 101cm (50 x 40 inches). Condition: A superb bright example. Backed to linen with some minor edge restoration.
This iconic London Underground ‘station map’ - as displayed on platforms and in ticket halls - is one of the most sought-after iterations of Harry Beck’s iconic London Underground diagram. Despite the print run of 5000 (as indicated by the print code), very few examples have survived, with most discarded upon the release of a new map. Even the London Transport Museum doesn’t carry this particular March 1950 printing.
Between 1949-1950 a long-proposed extension of the Bakerloo Line was shown on the map from Elephant & Castle to Camberwell - Despite being in planning for nearly 20 years, work never began and Elephant remains the terminus of the Bakerloo to this day. Two other proposed extensions on the Northern Line had featured on the map as far back at 1937 but due to WII and post-war inflation these projects were never completed.
Beck’s Favourite Design
In the book ‘Mr Beck’s Underground Map’, Ken Garland writes about the 1949-1950 design “..He considered this to be perhaps the best of all versions of the Diagram, and it is not difficult to see why he thought so… At last able to eradicate all those features with which he had been unwillingly saddled by others. He had incorporated a most welcome touch of yellow for the Circle Line.. and achieved the degree of rectilinearity he believed appropriate to the Diagram as he had always conceived it.”
So Beck’s map was finally as he had always wanted it to look. Since 1937, the Metropolitan and District Lines shared the same colour (Green). The 1949-1950 design saw the Met’s original purple reinstated and, together with first appearance of the Circle Line in yellow, it makes for a much more attractive and vibrant map.
FREE UK DELIVERY. Non-UK Delivery available, please request a quotation
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