Shedding a Light On the Station at Brighton (1)

It is fascinating to chart the development of railway infrastructure in our towns and cities, and challenging but informative to watch its decline. In the 18th century a small settlement, called Brighthemstone, sat on the south coast about 50 miles from London.

The small network of roads (bottom centre) was surrounded by fields, called laines**, largely in narrow strips to cope with the hilly nature of the town's early hinterland.  The shape of the future Old Steine** ...

... is there, as is the split of the London Road, Ditchling Road and Lewes Road.

By 1815 Brighthelmstone had begun to grow ...

... and had gained a letter "L" in its name! "The Steyne" has not yet become Old!

In the 1840s, what became the London Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) arrived on the northern edge of the town.

Lines from London joined lines from Shoreham-by-Sea (now Coastway West) and Lewes (Coastway East).

A magnificent terminal building was constructed ...

... with pitched roofs over the platforms.

The original 1840s building is still there, but it takes a bit of finding. Thanks to Google Earth we can look down and see the white-walled structure surrounded by less dignified clutter - less dignified but better for the protection of passengers in inclement weather.

Initially, road access was via Trafalgar Street ...

... but later Queens Road was constructed with financial help from the LB&SCR. There were many additions and extensions to the buildings but the most notable was the two-arch glazed roof added in 1882/1883.

One little quirk concerned Trafalgar Street. It proved very steep for the gentlemen's carriages (horse drawn, of course) so a more gentle slope was built into an east-side extension of the station building. The gateway is still there ...

... with wooden door now sealed shut, but still visible from an inside area used by staff for bike storage.

A gentle ramp led up to platform level from where drivers were expected to exit via the the steeper down slope of Trafalgar Street.

A rough diagram of the whole station area ...

... shows a separate line to a Goods depot. The whole site grew to include a locomotive building works and a substantial engine shed. All this is now gone, but the thoroughfare that replaced the goods line is, appropriately, named Stroudley Road after the LB&SCR's highly successful loco designer.

The "yards" were extensive, despite the constraints of the site. The map below is spun 90 degrees anti clockwise to confuse our reader. North is to the left.

Photos do not do justice to the works, but they were big. The station is upper left in the picture below.

... and loco shed was substantial.

Modern flats replace the loco works ...

... and Colas Rail (engineering company) occupies the engine shed site.

But getting all these structures in to a restricted and sloping site involved some spectacular and often overlooked railway engineering which will be outlined in tomorrow's blog.

Brighton, by the way, was a familiar short form of Brighthelmstone as far back as the 17th century. Slowly it began to supplant the older name and was eventually officially adopted in 1810.

** laines - a Sussex word meaning "an area of land at the foot of a hill".

** Steine - and area of rocky or pebbly land.

Snippet

Regular listeners to the late Terry Wogan's breakfast show on Radio 2 will recognise some of these names. Correspondent Alan sends this from N&P (Notices and Proceedings the journal which records the activity of the Traffic Commissioners). The Commissioners have nothing to do with traffic, hence their title, but they do handle all licensing affairs for passenger service vehicles.

Alan "Deadly" Dedicoat was announcer and occasional newsreader for our Tel whist Ken Bruce was the "jock" (in both senses of the word) which followed El Tel on air.

The surrender of the licence means they can no longer operate "for hire and reward" but it is not known whether they are disposing of the buses themselves.

Deadly is also famous for being "The Voice of the Balls" on the National Lottery TV programmes.

 Next Brighton blog : Tuesday 9th July