Southwark tube station
Jubilee line · Zone 1 · Southwark
About Southwark station
The first plans for the Jubilee Line Extension had no stop between Waterloo and London Bridge; Southwark was added after lobbying by the local council and the MP Simon Hughes. Sir Richard MacCormac of MacCormac, Jamieson, Prichard designed it, working under Roland Paoletti’s design team, on a cramped site with the platforms beneath the Victorian viaduct into Waterloo East. Heavy compensation grouting was needed to steady that viaduct, and the problem of the site was solved with two concourses at different levels. It opened with the final phase of the extension on 20 November 1999.
The upper concourse is the showpiece: a space 16 metres high under a glass roof, lined by a 40-metre wall of 660 specially cut pieces of blue glass by the artist Alexander Beleschenko. MacCormac cited Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s stage set for The Magic Flute as an inspiration. Below, the lower concourse is a plain tunnel faced with deliberately unpolished stainless steel and lit by glass and steel “beacons”, linked to the upper level by three narrow escalator shafts. Platform screen doors guard the tracks. The station won an RIBA Bronze medal in 2000, and the whole station, including the Waterloo East interchange, was Grade II listed on 10 November 2025.
First and last trains from Southwark
| Line and direction | Mon–Thu first – last | Friday first – last | Saturday first – last | Sunday first – last |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jubilee towards Stanmore, Wembley Park or West Hampstead | 05:33 – 00:29 | 05:33 – all night | 24 hours | all night – 23:55 |
| Jubilee towards Stratford, North Greenwich or West Ham | 05:31 – 00:51 | 05:31 – all night | 24 hours | all night – 00:05 |
Times are TfL’s published timetable departures from this station; on Saturday the list follows TfL’s “Saturdays and public holidays” timetable.
At the busiest hour on a weekday there are up to 27 Jubilee trains an hour per direction from Southwark, counting both directions separately.
Next stations from Southwark
Running times between Southwark and the adjoining stations, from TfL’s timetable.
| Line | Next station | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Jubilee | London Bridge | 1.9 min |
| Jubilee | Waterloo | 1.2 min |
Connections
Southwark is served by the Jubilee line only; there is no interchange with other rail lines here.
Station facilities
What is near Southwark station
The entrance stands on the corner of Blackfriars Road and The Cut, opposite the disused Blackfriars Road railway station, and one end of the upper concourse leads to Waterloo East. Theatres dominate the area: the Young Vic is about 180 m away, the Union Theatre roughly 260 m and the Old Vic about 370 m. The Kirkaldy Testing Museum lies at roughly 320 m, and Shakespeare’s Globe and Tate Modern are also among the attractions the station serves.
| Place | Walk from the station |
|---|---|
| The Young Vic | 180 m |
| Union Theatre | 260 m |
| Kirkaldy Testing Museum | 320 m |
| The Old Vic | 370 m |
| Central School Of Ballet | 180 m |
| The Calder Bookshop & Theatre | 190 m |
| Hatfields Green | 200 m |
| Nelson Square | 200 m |