So this is Aldgate, which is where the Metropolitan Line starts or ends, depending on where you live, but in technical parlance it is the Eastern Terminus, though it has only been so since 1941.
It was opened on the 18th of November 1876, after a slight delay, caused by the discovery that the site they were building on had been a mass grave for victims of the great plague.
This set has its first Cartophilic record in "Cigarette Card News" which I will add as soon as I find it, because after the Faulkner listings were printed therein they turned their attention to doing the same for Player. However for some reason whilst Faulkner maintained its premier slot, and was printed as reference book one, Player was one of the last, and ended up as reference book 17, where it is described as :
30. April 1925. CELEBRATED GATEWAYS (titled series). Size 2 11/16" x 1 7/16" or 67 x 36 m/m. Numbered 1-50. Fronts lithographed in colour. Backs in dark green, with descriptions. Printed by Mardon, Son & Hall. Also issued by Players.
Now the original World Tobacco Issues Index catalogues the set as : "CELEBRATED GATEWAYS. Sm. Nd. (50). See RB.17/44 and H.347" Though the updated version deletes the reference to RB.17, it just has H.347. And that H.347 leads us to the Handbook, where the text is :
H.347. CELEBRATED GATEWAYS. (titled series) Fronts in colour. Numbered series of 50.
Pre-1919 Player
Post 1919 Churchman
Now this does not tell the whole story, for our John Player version was issued almost twenty years earlier than the Churchman version - which you can read more about elsewhere, for it was our Card of the Day on October 11th 2023.