Finchley Road & Frognal Station, Looking East

A Memory of Swiss Cottage.

Having lived from 1938 to 1959 in the adjacent Lymington Road, which backs onto the Richmond-Broad Street Line serving this station and having passed it daily to and from my way to school/work, I would question classifying it as "Swiss Cottage", which is 10 minutes walk further east.
However, I can tell you that the newspaper seller, on the right of the entrance, was known to us as 'Con' and he sold The Star, Evening News and Evening Standard ("Starnewsstannard!").
To the left of the entrance, next door to the tobacconists, was a tiny corner 'kiosk'. After the war, two brothers used their 'Demob' money to set up as confectioners there. Of course, sweets were rationed at that time and one had to choose very carefully, which item one would spend one's precious 'Points' on. However, I remember that the first day that sweets were 'de-rationed', the kiosk being absolutely 'besieged' and they quickly sold out. The brothers subsequently moved to larger premises on the corner of Lithos Road (which backs onto the railway on the far side) and I heard that they later became prosperous wholesalers.
Further down Finchley Road, just past the third tree in the photograph, during the war, there was a steel Emergency Water Tank, for use in case of fire caused by incendiary bombs. Approximately 6m x 3m x 1.2m deep (as I recall) and covered with a steel mesh, it was a favourite haunt of school children, 'sailing' their home-made boats and trying to catch the elusive pond-skaters on the surface.