Take a trip through time - on the Tube

For most Tube-users, the underground is just a means of getting from A to B. and we rarely look around us to consider the Underground from different viewpoints: its history, design and fascinating tales. I'm a big fan of the London Transport Museum, so a Tube history tour was on the right track...

Farringdon (Metropolitan, Hammersmith & City, Circle lines) is our meeting point. Its mismatched track levels and narrow exit route are familiar; it was a station I used for work for a couple of years.

And 150 years ago, this is where the Tube network began. Two years of digging resulted in the world's first underground railway line, carrying 28,000 people on the first day of operation all the way to... King's Cross, one stop away.

Lisa, our guide, talks us through how the revolutionary concept of an underground railways was received (not well), mentioning other new ideas of the time, like the first return ticket: the 'working man's ticket' for 3d.

King's Cross (Metropolitan, Hammersmith & City, Circle, Northern, Victoria, Piccadilly lines) is a busy six-line interchange has recently been redesigned, and has a streamlined appearance - and a much easier switching between lines than the last time I was there!

Lisa tells us how the District line expanded westward and southward as land was cheap, and the Metropolitan District Company, who built the first leg, began to build the southern half of the Circle line, which opened on Christmas Eve 1874.

At Piccadilly Circus (Piccadilly and Bakerloo lines), we admire the Art Deco circular design, created to give the appearance of modernity and movement. Beautifully elegant pillars are topped with sleek orange lights, and I see something I've never noticed before: the world time clock. Opposite the old 'public telephones' sign, it's set into the wall and tells the time around the world although its tiny lightbulbs no longer work.

Our final stop is Westminster , on London's newest line, the Jubilee (plus District and Circle), where on the newest stations of the Jubilee Line Extension (Green Park to Stratford), the platforms are separated from the track by transparent partitions with sliding doors. This station is designed to look like the inner workings of a clock - see the 'hour markings' on the ceiling (right).

The naming of the lines

The Victoria line, named for the station halfway along it, which is named for Queen Victoria, was originally set to be called the Viking line, possibly because that's what the men who built it called it, because of its route at the time: Victoria-King's Cross. Sounds catchy but it didn't catch on. 

The Bakerloo line - then running from Baker Street to Waterloo -  was given its name by a newspaper which was actually making fun of  the then-unopened route. But the name stuck.

And one from my own memory: the Jubilee line was planned as the Fleet line, named after the river that runs under former newspaper centre, Fleet Street, but works ran so late that it opened for the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977, and was commemorated accordingly.

On tour on the Tube

Taking a guided tour of this transport system was truly a different way to travel. We slowed to a halt where everyone else was rushing, and looked closely at details that millions miss every day. In fact, our pauses, perusing and pointing attracted bemused glances from our fellow passengers.

Find out more

Insider London runs private tours of alternative London with itineraries on design, architecture, shopping and the Tube, costing from £20 per head, with gift vouchers available. To book or for more information, visit www.insider-worldwide.com.

And to find out more about Tube travel, visit Transport for London

See why the London Eye is a favourite with kids (Waterloo, on the Jubilee, Bakerloo and Northern lines; Westminster, on the Jubilee, and District and Circle)