The station, itself in the borough of Hillingdon, serves a very small residential community in Hatton, which is in the borough of Hounslow. The nearby area is partly within the airport but mainly includes its associated commercial warehousing and light industrial premises. "Hatton Cross" refers to the crossroads on the former coaching road leading south west, and is now applied to the overlying major road intersection immediately south east of the station. Hatton Cross is also the nearest train station to the popular plane spotting location of Myrtle Avenue, and for this reason is commonly used by plane spotters travelling to the area.
History
The station opened on 19 July 1975 in the first phase of the extension of the Piccadilly line from Hounslow West to Heathrow Airport and it remained the terminus until Heathrow Central opened on 16 December 1977. The extension has been criticised for being built to tube line standards whereas the existing line was capable of accommodating the larger District Line trains. For the new Terminal 4 at the airport, a single track loop was tunnelled from Hatton Cross to Heathrow Central with an intermediate new Terminal 4 station, which opened on 12 April 1986. The tube service to the airport then ran clockwise in a one-way loop from Hatton Cross to Terminal 4, on to Terminals 2 & 3, and back to Hatton Cross. On 7 January 2005, the loop and Terminal 4 station closed and the tube service reverted to its previous two-way running between Hatton Cross and the Terminals 2 & 3 station while tunnels to the new Heathrow Terminal 5 station were under construction; a shuttle bus from Hatton Cross was provided for passengers travelling to and from Terminal 4. Service round the loop restarted on 17 September 2006. From 27 March 2008, when the Terminal 5 station opened, alternate trains, of the twelve per hour arriving at Hatton Cross from London, have taken the Terminal 4 loop. These trains call at Heathrow Terminal 4, and then Terminals 2 & 3, before heading back to London. The other alternate trains run direct to Heathrow Terminal 5, via Terminals 2 & 3. On its opening in 1975, Hatton Cross was one of 279 active stations on the London Underground, the highest ever total; the number of stations in the network has since decreased to 270. Just to the east of the station the Piccadilly line briefly resurfaces to cross the River Crane then descends back underground again, heading towards Hounslow West. Immediately to the west of the station is the junction where the Terminal 4 loop diverges; this can be seen from the end of the westbound platform. This junction can be accessed only from the westbound track, thus there is no connection to the eastbound line where trains arrive from Terminals 2 & 3.
Architecture
The platforms at Hatton Cross are in a cut and cover tunnel. The platform tiling on the central columns features patterns derived from the British AirwaysSpeedbirdlogo. The station building, a brutalist, concrete-and-glass, single-storey box, incorporates a busy bus station, which serves the airport and the surrounding area.
Connections
The station is a busy tube/bus interchange, at the boundary of the Heathrow free bus zone. To the confusion of some passengers, the station is included in the Heathrow free travel zone for buses, but not for trains from the Underground station. Passengers arriving on trains who have touched in at any of the three Heathrow terminal stations will be charged if they exit the station, in contrast to those only travelling between Heathrow terminals.
