Highbury & Islington is an interchange station in the London Borough of Islington, north London for London Underground, London Overground and National Rail services.

The station is served by the Underground's Victoria line, the Overground's East and North London Lines and Great Northern's Northern City Line.

On the Victoria line, the station is between Finsbury Park and King's Cross St Pancras. The station is the terminus of the East London Line, with Canonbury the preceding station. On the North London Line, it is between Caledonian Road & Barnsbury and Canonbury. On the Northern City Line, it is between Essex Road and Drayton Park, 2 miles 21 chains (3.6 km) down the line from Moorgate.

It is the 13th busiest station in the UK, with over 30 million people a year using it in 2018/19 according to Office of Rail and Road statistics.

The station is in Travelcard Zone 2.

The current station derives from two earlier stations. The first, which was on the same site, was a Victorian-gothic building, designed by Edwin Henry Horne, with a drive-in forecourt, opened on 26 September 1850 by the North London Railway (NLR) and called 'Islington'. Following reconstruction, it was renamed 'Highbury & Islington' on 1 July 1872.

The second station, on the opposite side of Holloway Road, was opened on 28 June 1904 by the Great Northern & City Railway (GN&CR) on its underground line between Finsbury Park and Moorgate. Opened as 'Highbury', it was renamed to 'Highbury & Islington' on 20 July 1922. This line and stations were operated by the Metropolitan Railway and its successors from 1913 until 1975 when the line, by then called the Northern City Line, was transferred to British Rail. The route is now operated by Great Northern.

The NLR station was damaged by a V-1 flying bomb on 27 June 1944; however, its main building remained in use until it was demolished in the 1960s during the building of the Victoria line. The original westbound platform buildings remain, as does a small part of the original entrance to the left of the present station entrance.

The present single-storey structure was built in the 1960s for the opening of the Victoria line on 1 September 1968 and is the entrance for all lines. When the escalators to the deep-level platforms were opened, the GN&CR station building was closed. Its disused entrance remains and was refurbished externally in 2006 – it houses signalling equipment for the Victoria line.

The Victoria line was built to give as many interchanges as possible with Underground and British Rail lines, with, wherever possible, cross-platform connection between different lines heading in the same direction. To this end, at Highbury & Islington the northbound Northern City Line platform was reallocated to the southbound Victoria line to give a direct link between the two southbound platforms; a new northbound platform was constructed for each line; the northbound running NCL tunnel was diverted to its new platform; and the southbound Victoria line tunnel was joined to the old northbound NCL tunnel.

Between 14 May 1979 and 11 May 1985 the station was served by the Crosstown Linkline diesel multiple unit service between Camden Road and North Woolwich.

The former train operating company Anglia Railways ran services known as London Crosslink from Norwich to Basingstoke via Stratford, which called at Highbury & Islington. This service operated from 2000 until 2002.

To allow new four-car trains to run on the London Overground network, the North London Line between Gospel Oak and Stratford was closed between February and May 2010 while a new signalling system was installed and 30 platforms were extended. During this closure, the Highbury & Islington station ticket hall was extended and step-free access installed on all of the London Overground platforms. The North London Line reopened on 1 June 2010; however, the East London Line platforms did not open until March 2011, whilst the Western Curve was reinstated, linking the station to Dalston Junction and the rest of the East London Line.

Highbury & Islington has a total of eight platforms, divided between those that are on the surface and those that are deep level:

• Platform 1 – London Overground (East London Line) services to Crystal Palace
• Platform 2 – London Overground (East London Line) services to West Croydon (Clapham Junction on Sundays)
• Platform 3 – Northbound Victoria line
• Platform 4 – Northbound Northern City Line
• Platform 5 – Southbound Victoria line
• Platform 6 – Southbound Northern City Line
• Platform 7 – London Overground Westbound North London Line
• Platform 8 – London Overground Eastbound North London Line

Platforms for North London Line (NLL) and East London Line (ELL) services are operated by London Overground. On 1 June 2010, following the temporary closure of the route from February 2010 to May 2010, NLL services were rerouted to the newly built platforms 7 and 8 for the AC lines, which replaced the old "special use" platform. Platforms 1 and 2, which previously served the NLL route on third rail lines, were closed from February 2010 for reconstruction and reopened in 2011 for the ELL services. The change of platforms allows ELL services to operate without having to cross over NLL tracks. An island platform provides platforms 2 and 7; platforms 1 and 8 are side platforms. When the ELL extension to Clapham Junction was first instituted in December 2012, trains ran through to Clapham Junction from this station throughout the week. Following a timetable change in December 2014, they only do so on Sundays, with West Croydon the second destination served alongside Crystal Palace on weekdays & Saturdays.

Platforms 3 to 6 are deep-level platforms. Platforms 3 and 5 are used for services on the Victoria line; 4 and 6 are used for Northern City Line services.

v t e East London Line
Legend
London Overground
Highbury & Islington Canonbury Dalston Junction Haggerston Kingsland Viaduct Hoxton Shoreditch High Street Whitechapel Shadwell ( Shadwell) Wapping Thames Tunnel under River Thames Rotherhithe Canada Water Surrey Quays Queens Road Peckham New Cross Peckham Rye New Cross Gate Denmark Hill Brockley Clapham High Street ( Clapham North) Honor Oak Park Wandsworth Road Forest Hill Clapham Junction Sydenham Crystal Palace Penge West Anerley Norwood Junction West Croydon

All times below are correct as of May 2016.

Mondays to Saturdays there is a service every 6–9 minutes throughout the day, while on Sundays before 13:00 there is a service every 15 minutes, changing after that to every 7–8 minutes until the end of service.

Mondays to Fridays there is a service approximately every 7–8 minutes throughout the morning and evening peaks, changing to roughly every 10 minutes off-peak. On Saturdays the service is approximately every 10 minutes. Sunday services are similar in frequency to the services on Saturdays.

v t e Finsbury Park to Highbury & Islington to Dalston
Legend
East Coast Main Line Finsbury Park Junctions with Canonbury Curve and Northern City Line towards King's Cross Bridge to Emirates Stadium Drayton Park Victoria line Canonbury Curve North London line Highbury & Islington Victoria line Northern City Line Canonbury Dalston Junction Dalston Kingsland East London line North London line

Mondays to Fridays there is a service approximately every 4–15 minutes until 10:00, when the frequency is every 10 minutes until 16:00, when the frequency again changes to between every 4–15 minutes until the end of service. Prior to December 2015, weekend and evening services were diverted to Kings Cross from Finsbury Park. Northbound trains run alternately to Welwyn Garden City and to Stevenage via Hertford North.

Westbound there is a service every 2–5 minutes all day, all week. Eastbound there are services every 2–8 minutes all day, all week.

Preceding station	London Underground			Following station
King's Cross St Pancras towards Brixton		Victoria line		Finsbury Park towards Walthamstow Central
Preceding station	London Overground			Following station
Caledonian Road & Barnsbury towards Richmond or Clapham Junction		North London line		Canonbury towards Stratford
Terminus		East London line		Canonbury towards Crystal Palace or West Croydon
Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Drayton Park		Great Northern Northern City Line		Essex Road
Former Service
Camden Road or West Hampstead		Anglia Railways London Crosslink		Stratford
Preceding station	London Underground			Following station
Drayton Park towards Finsbury Park		Metropolitan line Northern City Branch (1913-39)		Essex Road towards Moorgate
		Northern line Northern City branch (1939-64)
Drayton Park Terminus		Northern line Northern City branch (1964-75)
Abandoned plans
Drayton Park towards Bushey Heath, High Barnet or Alexandra Palace		Northern line		Essex Road towards Moorgate

London Buses routes 4, 19, 21, 30, 43, 263 and 393 and night routes N19, N41, N271 and N277 serve the station.

Sources

• Original NLR station
• London Transport Museum Photographic Archive
  • GN&CR station building, shortly after the Metropolitan Railway's absorption into the London Underground, 1933
  • Side entrance to GN&CR building on to Highbury Crescent, 1934
  • Ticket hall of GN&CR station, 1935
  • Combined ticket hall, 1970
  • Northern City Line southbound platform, 1975
  • Combined ticket hall, 2005
  • Entrance to station, 2005 (note remnant of original NLR building on left)
• Geoffrey Tribe's Railway Photo Halt
  • GN&CR station building, June 1968
  • New station entrance, June 1968