On 31 Jan, 14:24, Paul Terry wrote:
But if you look at the map, there's a fifth shaft, out of line from
the others. Wouldn't that be right on top of the tracks?
Don't forget that the line ended at Bank in 1902. The Liverpool Street
extension didn't open until 1912 (and I think it skirts a bit to the
south, passing under the Royal Exchange to avoid the vaults of the Bank
of England).
Its too close to the other two lift shafts on that side for one of the
three to not to be in the way of the tracks. If the tracks were
shorter, and didn't stretch quite that far, isn't that implausibly
short-sighted?

I had a thought that perhaps they weren't built parallel to the
tracks, but jiggled about a bit in the space (think of oranges), which
might indicate that the semicircular smudge on the left was the spiral
stairs. But then, since they weren't really constrained on the
surface, why didn't they just build the lifts and stairs all on a
straight line with each other?