Hatton Cross

General info

Hatton Cross is a London Underground station located in Travelcard zones 5 and 6. It is on the Heathrow branch of the Piccadilly line between Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3 or Heathrow Terminal 4 and Hounslow West stations.

The station opened on 19 July 1975 in the first phase of the extension of the Piccadilly line from Hounslow West to Heathrow Airport and it remained the terminus until Heathrow Central (now Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3) opened on 16 December 1977.

Since Heathrow Terminal 5 station opened on 27 March 2008, every other train - out of the twelve per hour arriving at Hatton Cross from Central London - has taken the loop that serves Terminal 4. These trains call at Heathrow Terminal 4, and then Terminals 2 & 3, before returning to the city. The other alternate trains run to Terminals 2 & 3 terminating at Heathrow Terminal 5.

The Terminal 4 loop branches off at a junction just west of the station, visible from the end of the westbound platform. This junction is accessible only from the westbound track, which is why there’s no connection to the eastbound line used by trains arriving from Terminals 2 and 3.

Just east of the station, the Piccadilly line briefly emerges above ground to cross the River Crane before descending back underground on its way to Hounslow West.

Name origin

The name Hatton is derived from the Old English ‘haep’ - ‘heath’ and ‘tun’ - ‘a farm’ and means ‘a farm on the heath’. The Cross is most likely a reference to a road junction.

Architecture

The platforms at Hatton Cross are located in a cut-and-cover tunnel. The tiling on the central columns features patterns inspired by the British Airways Speedbird logo, originally designed by Theyre Lee-Elliott in 1932.

Westbound platform at the Hatton Cross station

Trivia

On its opening in 1975, Hatton Cross was one of 279 active stations on the London Underground - the highest ever total. Since then, the total number of the stations decreased to 272.

Hatton Cross station is briefly mentioned in one of the short stories in “Underground Tales for London” - a collection of short stories published in honour of the opening of the Elizabeth line. The author of the story humorously asks, “Who even visits this station for the station’s sake - unless they're not changing trains to get to one of the Heathrow terminals?” It is a witty remark, but one that also hints at a deeper truth about the station’s overlooked and somewhat uninspiring location.

However, there is at least one notable attraction nearby - Myrtle Avenue, a well-known plane spotting location. Because of this, the station is regularly used by plane spotters heading to the area.

Me at Hatton Cross

This is one of those many stations of the London Underground system that I visited only once, which was in December 2022, moreover, I didn’t leave the station, so I don’t even know how the station looks outside. I hope to correct that some day but for now I only have pictures of the platforms which I inspected while waiting for my connection.