STATIONS ON THE EPSOM DOWNS BRANCH

EPSOM DOWNS

 

A DAY AT THE RACES

The Downs close to Epsom have always been one of the green lungs of the greater London area and even became something of a spa with the discovery of Epsom Salts around the year of 1620. But despite the regular stream of weekend ramblers from the city, the Downs basically remained a nice place out in the middle of nowhere. The sole reason to build a railway line terminus there was horse racing (which had also started around 1620 and turned into a major event with crowds of spectators since the 1770s), and the sole point the Banstead & Epsom Downs Railway was aiming at was the Epsom racecourse and Grandstand.

Due to fierce opposition of both the Lord of the Manor of Epsom Downs and the Epsom Grandstand Association, the original plans to build the station as close as 220 yards to the Grandstand had to be changed, and in the end thes station came to be built some 1'100 yards away from the Grandstand.

Epsom Downs Station, c. 1900
(Lens of Sutton)

Epsom Downs on Derby day in 1877 - traffic and engines galore!
(Lens of Sutton)

Image produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service. Image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland.

While this was of course much closer to the racecourse than any other railway station at the time, Epsom Downs station remained slightly "in the middle of nowhere", a fact which became all the more evident when the South Eastern Railway opened its station at Tattenham Corner in 1901 in the immediate vicinity of the racecourse. However, the area bordering Epsom Downs station to the East and South began to see a steadily rising amount of housing development (as can be seen from a contemporary aerial view at multimap.com), providing new traffic for the branch since the 1920s.

The track plan at Epsom Downs was cut back in terms of facilities required for the servicing and turning of steam locomotives after electrification came into operation in July 1930, and the turntable was removed in February 1931.

Even so, Epsom Downs station remained what it had been right from its construction: a paradoxical affair. Designed to handle great bustling masses of travellers, these only came here on a very limited number of days during the year. For all the rest of the year, the station complex was oversized beyond description. Despite the 1931 modifications in the station throat area, the nine platform layout was kept right up until 1969, when all platforms other than no. 4 and 5 were put out of use and all other trackwork abandoned and eventually lifted. Even then, however, the station echoed a ghostly memory of its glorious past in the heyday of Victorian race traffic.

Epsom Downs Station in 1959, already looking slightly gloomy
(D. Clayton, courtesy of Subterranea Britannica's Disused Stations website)

The station building as seen from platform 6 in November 1975 - lifted tracks and growing shrubbery add to a somewhat ghostly atmosphere
(Nick Catford, used with kind permission, courtesy of Subterranea Britannica's Disused Stations website)

Two more views taken in November 1975, looking towards the signal box (left) and showing what used to be platform 8/9, already overgrown with trees (right) [both images: click for larger picture]
(Nick Catford, used with kind permission, courtesy of Subterranea Britannica's Disused Stations website)

 

Epsom Downs Signalbox, erected in 1879 by the LBSCR's preferred contractor, Saxby & Farmer, was a substantially sized building, measuring about 42 ft in length. In its later days, the decaying timber was patched up with asbestos panels.

(John Hinson, used with kind permission, courtesy of the Signal Box Website)

The box contained two lever frames, a Saxby & Farmer spindle frame of 50 levers together with - up until the layout was rationalised - a 25 lever Saxby & Farmer rocker locking frame, fitted in 1908 at the same time as the original frame was relocked (this would have allowed the two frames to have worked together even though they were so different). When the layout was rationalised the 25 lever section was replaced with a two lever Stevens Knee frame just to control the detonator placers. Strangely the interlocking in the old frame remained unchanged until the late 1970s, which gave rise to a great number of levers worked just to maintain the original locking moves (these are the Brown/Blue levers in the pictures below).

Interior views from early 1975 show the reduced track diagram (above) and the levers (below, click for larger images).
(C) Floyd Graham, used with kind permission

On 21st December 1969, the intermediate boxes on the branch were abolished and automatic colour-light signalling introduced between Sutton and Epsom Downs. Epsom Downs itself retained most of the semaphore signals, although the station layout had been considerably reduced by then. The signal box was scheduled to close in 1982 in connection with the resignalling of the area (controlled from a box named Victoria but actually located at Clapham Junction). but the end came earlier as the box was destroyed by a fire on 16th November 1981.

 

A Cl 415 (4EPB) arriving at platform 2 (formerly platform 5), July 1986 - the lifting of tracks left wide open spaces around the redundant platforms.
[click for larger image]

 

A STATION VANISHES

All traces of the station's past and the reason for building the branch in the first place were completely eradicated on February 15th and 16th 1989 when the old station building was pulled down. A new station which looked just like one of the newly built houses in its neighbourhood was built some 300 yards away from the original station concourse. With now just one platform and a single line of track, virtually nothing remained of what once was Epsom Downs station - indeed, only the pillars supporting the valanced canopy were rescued from the old building and put to decorative use.

The new station building shortly after its opening in 1989

All that remains today of the once complex station layout is the track originally running into platform 4. Because the single line on the branch is the original Down line, the track curves slightly to the right after clearing the new platform.

The track layout of the new Epsom Downs station, seen from the station throat on 24 May 2004
(Nick Catford, used with kind permission, courtesy of Subterranea Britannica's Disused Stations website)

General view of the platform area (left, May 2004), platform from the station end (centre, September 2001) and from the end of the platform (right, March 2002)
(left: Nick Catford, used with kind permission, courtesy of Subterranea Britannica's Disused Stations website / middle & right: Robert Oakes, used with kind permission)

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Page last revised: May 3rd 2005