The first Metropolitan station opened as Paddington (Bishop’s Road) but Paddington station, designed by the celebrated engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel had long been the London end of the Great Western Railway.
Paddington had been an important town west of London before it was engulfed by the metropolis. It was first a medieval parish, then a metropolitan borough and finally integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965. Also found in Paddington are St Mary’s Hospital (where penicillin was first discovered) and the former Paddington Green Police Station – once the most important high-security police station in the United Kingdom.
Alan Turing, the pioneer mathematician was born in Warrington Crescent.
Fictionally, Paddington Station has a display case showing Paddington Bear, a character of children’s fiction who, in the book, is first discovered at this station and hence named after it.
Paddington mainline railway station has a commuter service serving stations west of London, a mainline service to Oxford, Bristol, Bath, Taunton, Devon, Cornwall and South Wales. The Elizabeth Line now runs through, inheriting the express rail line to Heathrow Airport.
