History

This edition of the Garbutt Quad Royal poster shows the Picadilly Line extension to Heathrow Airport under construction, which would be completed in 1977. The map also an overprint advising passengers that Strand Station (later merged with Charing Cross) was to be closed between June 1973 and 1976 to enable the construction of what would become the new Jubilee line platforms.

Paul E Garbutt (1919-2008) was an underground railway planner for London Transport from the 1950’s to the 1970’s as well as bing a central figure in the development and refinement of the London Underground Map, first created by Harry Beck in the 1930’s.

Garbutt was central to the planning of the Victoria Line, Jubilee line, and the Heathrow extension of the Piccadilly line and the ideas he introduced to the London tube system have been imitated by metro systems around the world. Garbutt’s most lasting design choice, as far as his mapmaking is concerned, involved restoring and extending Harry Beck’s classic (and extremeley popular) curvilinear rendering of the tube lines. This included introducing the now familiar ‘Thermos-Flask’ shape of the Circle line.

In doing so Garbutt was compelled to subtly alter the strict topographical accuracy of the course of the river Thames. This has led to him being referred to as ‘the man who diverted the Thames’.