10 incredible facts you might not know about the Hammersmith and City line

Did you know that Barbican station replaced a building which claimed to be Shakespeare's house?

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Liz Connor18 July 2016

Coloured salmon pink on the map and running from Hammersmith to Barking, the Hammersmith and City line serves 22 stations and is the route that takes many of us from east to west London.

If you’ve caught this line, you’ll probably have noticed that its track and all of its stations are shared with either the District, Circle or Metropolitan lines.

But the Hammersmith and City was in fact the first underground railway in the world.

It ran from Paddington to near Smithfield - near London's financial heart in the City - with gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives.

If you live in London then you probably use the Hammersmith and City line to visit the Barbican Centre, catch a gig at Hammersmith O2 and go shopping on Brick Lane. But how much do you really know about the network that ferries millions of people around the capital?

Click through our gallery above to discover ten interesting facts about London’s oldest Tube route.