The station was originally named "Newington Road and Balls Pond Road" when opened in 1858 by the North London Railway, and was sited east of the present station on the east side of Newington Green Road. The station was renamed "Canonbury" in July 1870 and then resited to its present location, the west side of Douglas Road, in December of the same year. The Victorian main building was demolished in 1969, although the building was fully intact. In 2007, the ticket office was extensively refurbished, as part of the station upgrade programme delivered through conversion to London Overground. On 1 June 2010, as a result of the East London Line extension, North London Line services were rerouted to the newly constructed platforms 3 and 4, with the East London Line trains now using refurbished platforms 1 and 2. To the west of the station is the Canonbury curve, a freight-only connection through the Canonbury tunnel to the East Coast Main Line at which had opened in 1874. A passenger service operated to/from Broad Street from 1875 until 1976 when suburban services from the main line were diverted to Moorgate via the newly built surface connection between Finsbury Park and Drayton Park. The North London Line between and closed in February 2010, for installing a new signalling system and for extending 30 platforms, in order in due course to allow four-car trains to run on the London Overground network. After reopening on 1 June 2010, the work continued until May 2011 with a reduced service operating Mondays to Saturdays and no service at all on Sundays. During the NLL closure of February–May 2010, the through route was moved to the north side of the cutting, and two adjacent brand new platforms provided, an island platform replacing the former eastbound platform. This allowed the extended ELL to serve Canonbury on a pair of completely segregated tracks occupying the former route on the south side of the cutting. Since the northern extension of the East London Line, which was completed and opened in March 2011, Canonbury station has had four platforms, giving interchange between the London Overground East London Line and North London Line with step-free access to all platforms and peak service frequencies of 12 trains per hour in each direction.
Services
All times below are correct as of the May 2011 timetables.
North London Line
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. Services have resumed on Sundays and are similar to those on Saturdays. Details of these services are below: The times below are the typical weekday service at the station in trains per hour:
2 westbound to Clapham Junction also via Camden Road and Willesden Junction
6 eastbound to via Hackney.
East London Line
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 to every 7–8 minutes until the end of service after that. Details of these services are below: The times below are the typical weekday service at the station in trains per hour:
8 northbound to.
4 southbound to via Surrey Quays and Sydenham.
4 southbound to via Surrey Quays & .
Direct services to/from run on Sundays only Services run through the night on Friday and Saturday.
