Beguiling

That's rather satisfying: a whole swathe of London Underground's stations has been listed, in recognition of their architectural importance, and some that were already listed -- like Sudbury Town -- have been upgraded to 2* status (just one level below the most important buildings of all):

The pair of stations at Sudbury were among the very first of architect Charles Holden's new Modernist brick boxes, inspired by a tour of continental Europe that were to have a major impact on Underground design.

The earlier stations were very formal, almost severe, while the last ones to be built were almost playful -- like my personal favourite, Arnos Grove:

Reminiscent of Gunnar Asplund's wonderful Stockholm Public Library, Holden modestly said of his design that he simply traced on a piece of paper the ways that people would naturally move between the street and the platforms and realised a circular drum would be the most economical way of containing them.

Arnos Grove is one of the great exemplars of his theory that stations should be designed such that in the darkness of the grim London nights they should act as warm, welcoming beacons of light. Most have now been wrecked with overly harsh fluorescent lighting, but Arnos Grove retains the beautiful soft, warm, yellow light that Holden intended:

So, with these upgrades to their Listed status, which should provide the most robust protection to ensure their survival for as long as we have a Capitalist system in place, central Government proves it can do at least a few things properly.