On 25 August Herne Hill railway station celebrated its 150th anniversary - opened on that day in 1862 when the London, Chatham & Dover Railway inaugurated its service to Victoria. Trains to Elephant & Castle (today’s Thameslink route) were introduced a few months later in December 1862. The main station building of 1862 fronting Railton Road survives to this day, little altered.
At 2:30 there were short talks on the history and heritage of the station, and plans for the future. This was followed by a toast to celebrate its 150th anniversary and a cake was presented to the station staff.
The station’s frontage building is a fine example of mid-Victorian railway architecture, recognised by English Heritage in 1998 when the then Lambeth Conservation officer, Edmund Bird, applied for its heritage protection and it was listed Grade II by virtue of its special historic and architectural interest. Its facade is beautifully articulated - the commanding tower with its arcaded upper floor and pyramidal slate roof echoes that of a parish church, attached to one side is the booking hall and station offices above, resembling a nave. The gothic-style windows have pointed heads to the arches and the stock brick elevations are embellished with white horizontal banding and a warm redbrick cornice. The timber canopy at street level is supported on three carved brackets with a fretted valance.
Sadly the interior of the ticket office was blandly ‘modernised’ many years ago and nothing of its original character survives.
Before the station platform layout was remodelled in 1924, passengers climbed up to the first floor from the booking hall and walked directly onto a platform for the Victoria train but this was swept away when the station was enlarged to create the two island platforms accessed via a subway, the layout that still serves us today. The bricked-up window and door openings onto the former platform can still be seen to this day by passengers standing on Platform 1. The platform canopies, waiting rooms etc., date from this rebuilding which paved the way for the electrification of the service to Victoria and Orpington in 1925. A striking part of the station was the tall signal box that towered above Herne Hill Junction just south of the station until its demolition in 1956.
After opening in 1862 services from Herne Hill expanded rapidly, reaching Beckenham in 1863, Blackfriars in 1865 and Sutton via Tulse Hill in 1869. Direct express trains linked Herne Hill and Dover by the 1870s, taking less time than the present-day journey which now requires a change of trains at St Pancras or Bromley South. In 1899 the South Eastern & Chatham Railway took over running services to Herne Hill, followed by the Southern Railway in 1923 and British Railways Southern Region upon nationalisation in 1947.
The station is now fully accessible following the recent installation of lifts to platform level from the subway and the station frontage was greatly enhanced by the closure of this stretch of Railton Road to through traffic and its transformation into a pedestrian-friendly village centre in 2010.
150 years on from its opening, Herne Hill Station continues to serve the residents of Herne Hill, attracting over 2.5 million passengers a year.
Text by Edmund Bird (shown here, centre)
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