Threading through the South Downs

LAVANT

(Lavant 24.6.1976 Copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

(Lavant 15.5.1977. Copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

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Imagine a single track railway with impressive tile hung stations running through a National Park linking a cathedral city with a country town, using exclusively steam - over bridges and through tunnels cutting through the South Downs.

Not quite the Bluebell or Cuckoo lines - the line was the Chichester to Midhurst branch of the LBSCR. The line closed throughout to passengers as long ago (as did Chichester's other branch line) but kept going with freight traffic throughgout until 1951 when flooding led to an accident which effectively cut the line between Cocking and Midhurst. Most of the remainder of the line closed in 1953, apart from the two mile section to Lavant which remained open until 1970 for seasonal sugarbeet traffic. An even shorter section of the line opened as far as a gravel pit south of Lavant, this final section closing as late as 1991.

(Near Lavant 15.5.1977. Copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

These are the basic facts about this line, but I had a much closer attachment to the route, as back in the late 60s and early 70s it was the closest disused line to where I lived in Littlehampton, and I regularly visited the line at Lavant, just catching it whilst the track was still down. The track ran through the station and tantalising beyond northwards to vanish in long grass with the South Downs as a backdrop. So a regular trip for me in that period was to catch the train from Littlehampton to Chichester, then walk until I could pick up the track south of Lavant.

The line beyond was a mystery to me and I never ventured beyond Lavant in those days. But a few years later I had a motorbike and followed the route northwards. I did get to photograph Cocking station, but Singleton was too scary to approach with it being a working vineyard (a rare thing even in Sussex back in pre-Global Warming days!)

(Cocking 24.6.1976 Copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

I had even been lucky enough to see the closed LBSCR station at Midhurst which marked the northern end of this route back in about 1970, shortly before it was demolished and a year before I started taking pictures. I even found the long abandoned LSWR in Midhurst on the same day which hadn't seen trains stop since 1925 (?) when all services began to use the more imposing LBSCR station.

(Midhurst LBSCR 1958. Source Google)

I haven't been back to this line for many years. The trackbed is now a cycleway and footpath and the station at Lavant has been converted into flats (it was a very big station for a small village!) Singleton is still a vineyard and Cocking is an impressive private house. You'd hardly know Midhurst ever had a station let alone two.

The future? Well Midhurst will need trains again one day, that's for sure. There were three branches to Midhurst, from Chichester, Pulborough and Petersfield. But the most useful line never actually got built - a direct route to London via Fernhurst and the Portsmouth Direct route ...

There have been schemes over the years to reopen at least part of the Midhurst network, albeit as a heritage line. One thing's for sure, no railway ever really dies, and they are all just waiting for their time to come.

singleton

Before opening.

The subway in 2002.

(Copyright Chris Bedford Dumpman Films)

How it is now.

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Nestling in a gap in the South Downs a few miles north of Chichester is one of the most fascinating closed stations of all.

Singleton's a small, fairly quiet village, but it holds a secret! A big closed station, now masquerading as a vineyard. 

If you're driving up from Chichester there's a clue as to why Singelton had such a big station Goodwood Race Course, which sits high on the Downs to the east of the village.

Singleton was on the Chichester to Midhurst line, opened in 1881. Traffic was always fairly sparse, but Singleton was different. It was designed as the station for Goodwood. It had four platforms connected by a subway, buffets, holding sidings for trains, a large goods shed and TWO signalboxes!  Whilst popular with King Edward VII the hoi polloi preferred Chichester station as the walk to Goodwood was easier!

Other stations on the line were far more basic with single platforms, but all sported elegant tile hung buildings in a similar style to those on the Bluebell and Cuckoo lines. Passenger trains finished in 1935, freight on this section continued to 1953 and the final section (south of Lavant) lost its trains in the late 1980s.

But the stations are still there (apart from Midhurst) although serving very different purposes these days. I never had the guts to sneak into Singleton and take pictures unfortunately, but Lavant was a regular haunt for me in the early 1970s. This was a fantastic line cutting as it did through the Downs. Hopefully it will return in the future.

Film of the route (plus loads of other great Sussex stuff!!)

More info (via Wikipedia) 

Singleton railway station served the village of Singleton in the county of West Sussex in England. The station was on the former line between Chichester and Midhurst. It was opened on 11 July 1881.
The station, designed by T. H. Myres, was built in a grand way by its owners the London Brighton and South Coast Railway, which included four platforms, with a subway linking them and the 'Country House' style station building, buffets, long sidings for awaiting trains, a large goods shed for dealing with freight, and two signal boxes to control the station. The main reason for this large building was to deal with visitors to the Goodwood Racecourse, but passengers preferred to use Chichester Station mostly due to the walk uphill to the course from Singleton. It was one of the most visited stations by the LBSCR Royal train as the prince of Wales (later Edward VII) used to 'weekend' with the James family at West Dean House. Little other traffic was ever found, and despite all of the grand hopes, passenger services were withdrawn on 6 July 1935. Freight services remained until these were withdrawn on 28 August 1953 by British Railways. The station is now in use by a vineyard owner.