Great British Railway Journeys

by Charlie Bunce

  The west pier was considered the most attractive of Brighton’s three piers until it was destroyed by fire.

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  Clearly the train link opened in 1841 had brought an influx of ‘commoners’ to Brighton. Nor was its arrival entirely good news for commerce in the town. Until the advent of the train Brighton was an essential staging post on the quickest route between London and Paris. Ferries pulled alongside the chain pier, which had been built in 1823 and looked like a stunted suspension bridge, to transport people to Dieppe on the other side of the Channel and onward to the French capital.

  When the railway reached nearby Newhaven in 1847, however, its deep-water port was immediately a better option for cross-channel ferries. The chain pier was then used for leisure purposes. As the science of pier building improved, Brighton got not one but two more piers to the west, although only a lone example, the Palace Pier, remains open today. The chain pier was washed away by a storm in 1896, and the West Pier, designed by Victorian architect Eugenius Birch (1816–84) and acclaimed as the most magnificent, was left a skeleton after an arson attack and later succumbed to wind and fire.

  Brighton also boasts the oldest aquarium and, along the sea-front, the longest serving electric railway in the world, the brainchild of Magnus Volks (1851–1937). Opened in 1883, it was the first electric railway in the world for public use. For a few years around the turn of the century the line was linked to another Volks creation, the Seashore Railway, which ran all the way from Brighton to Rottingdean on rails built under the sea. Passengers travelled in a tramcar perched on high stilts, which led to the railway being known as ‘Daddy Long Legs’. Sadly the Seashore Railway closed in 1901 to make way for sea defences.

  PASSENGERS TRAVELLED IN A TRAMCAR PERCHED ON HIGH STILTS, WHICH LED TO THE RAILWAY BEING KNOWN AS ‘DADDY LONG LEGS’

  Volks also installed electricity in his Brighton house in 1880 and later built an electric car. The Grand Hotel was built in 1864. All these and more are indicators of the lively, outward-looking and affluent resort that Brighton became in the last half of the nineteenth century. The aquarium and sea-front railway are still operational.

  On its way from Brighton the London train climbs a valley and then tunnels through the South Downs before continuing north to Haywards Heath and Crawley. When the railway arrived, each of these towns was already well established, with a long history, but elsewhere the line brought sudden changes in status.

  Southern Britain was rapidly criss-crossed with railway lines, making small towns out of villages and major commercial centres out of small towns. Two places on the London to Brighton line fall into this category. Gatwick was barely a village when the aerodrome opened in 1936, but since its modernisation and expansion in the 1950s it has been one of Britain’s main airports and now has 30 million visitors a year flying to 200 world-wide destinations from its single runway. Further north the line bypassed hilly Reigate, and where it crossed the Guildford to Tonbridge line nearby, the town of Redhill grew so fast that it soon rivalled its senior neighbour in size and commercial importance.

  Six miles east of Redhill on the line towards Tonbridge and Ashford is Godstone, where firestone was once quarried. It was used for buildings, in furnaces and as a bed in glass-making. As the ‘good stone’ quarried here had no grain, it could be cut in any direction. Once the quarry enjoyed a monopoly, but it was killed off in about 1860 by a revolution in transport which led to the arrival of cheaper stone from elsewhere. The quarry caves still contain the original tram lines that brought loaded wagons to the surface. In fact the lines have an older history than that. Before being installed underground they were part of the Croydon, Merstham & Godstone Iron Railway, a horse-drawn tramway that operated between 1803 and 1838, and was then supplanted by the railway.

  Continuing north from Redhill, the railway eventually takes us into south London and through Croydon to Sydenham. Here we reach the site of the Crystal Palace, an elegant glass citadel that symbolised the shining hopes and aspirations of the Victorian age.

  An immense glazed building, designed by Sir Joseph Paxton (1801–65), was constructed in Hyde Park at the bidding of Prince Albert in 1851 for the Great Exhibition, showcasing Britain’s contribution to the Industrial Revolution and cutting-edge technology from the rest of the world. Its construction was made possible by the removal of a tax on glass and the advances in glass manufacturing techniques that followed.

  But the Hyde Park exhibition was temporary. In 1854 the magnificent structure was dismantled and reconstructed across London in another park at Sydenham. Seeking to enhance its reputation, the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway paid for the move, confident that it would recoup costs as passengers used the trains to flock there.

  Crystal palace was a triumph of victorian engineering, first sited in London’s Hyde Park and later relocated to Sydenham, where it stood for 80 years before being wrecked in a blaze.

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  Prehistory was a new science for the victorians. the creatures constructed at Crystal Palace were interpretations of recently unearthed skeletons.

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  The building remained an exhibition centre and was also used for plays and concerts. The public loved it. Even Bradshaw seems uncharacteristically poetic... ‘But when the train approaches the spot where the brilliant and fairy fabric, in the midst of the most enchanting scenery, is revealed suddenly to the eye, the impression produced solicits our warmest admiration … the view of which we may envy the Brighton Railway traveller who enjoys the sight daily in virtue of his season ticket.’ It was, the guide insists, ‘the most wonderful work human hands and mind have yet achieved’.

  The hunch by the rail company about increased passenger numbers paid off, but it couldn’t then raise the capital to extend railway lines. Instead it encouraged the West End of London & Crystal Palace Railway to build a branch line from its station in Sydenham to Crystal Palace itself.

  More than 112,000 people visited Crystal Palace by train in a single day in 1859. Inside there were 13,000 exhibits in a building that measured 1,858 feet in length. The square footage inside the glass walls was six times that of St Paul’s Cathedral.

  Next to the palace were grounds almost as large as Hyde Park, among which were dotted one of its most popular features, life-size models of dinosaurs. This was an early attempt to reconstruct a species recognised by scientists through skeletal excavation in an age when the Bible’s version of creation held sway. Created by Professor Richard Owen, the 33 models were built from brick and artificial stone on a framework of iron. Not entirely accurate in their interpretation, they were modelled on partial skeletons that had been discovered and nonetheless pre-dated Charles Darwin’s 1859 book On the Origin of Species by several years. They represented a bold effort at understanding a distant history with no precedent to follow.

  As time went on the popularity of the palace inevitably waned. The 1911 Festival of Empire marked the last of its glory days. The event was swiftly followed by its bankruptcy, and the Crystal Palace was ultimately bought for the nation, to be used as a naval training establishment during the First World War. Finally, disaster struck in 1936 when a small office fire was fanned by the wind into an all-consuming blaze. The Crystal Palace was destroyed by night in a conflagration that could be seen from eight counties.

  The park remains, and on and around an island in the lake children can still find excitement in the one feature of the Crystal Palace that’s not extinct – the dinosaurs.

  Trains from Brighton to London terminate at London Bridge or Victoria, while you can also change at Clapham Junction and arrive at Waterloo. Thanks to the underground services all London stations are highly accessible. Waterloo station was opened in 1848 by the London & South Western Railway, not as a terminal but a stop on a through line. It grew into a jumble of stations, platforms and services until a major refurbishment took place in the first decade of the twentieth century. Among the trains that departed fr
om Waterloo before and after the rebuild was the ‘stiffs express’, as it was known among railway workers. It was a service run especially for the dead, heading from London to Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey.

  The London Necropolis Company, which ran it, was set up in 1850 when the sudden growth in building throughout the capital meant that land for burial was in short supply. The company hit on the idea of ferrying coffins to an out-of-city cemetery where there was plenty of space and which family and friends knew would not be ploughed up by developers within a few years. They found a suitable site at Brookwood, between Woking and Farnborough. When it opened in 1854, the 2,000-acre cemetery was the largest in the world.

  At Waterloo a special station was built, designed by Sir William Tite, easily accessible from the company’s building in Westminster Bridge Road. Every day an express train departed for Brookwood, bearing coffins and associated mourners, for whom there were three classes of ticket. At Brookwood the cemetery had its own branch line from Necropolis Junction and two stations, one for the Anglican section and one for the Nonconformists. As time went by, the odd golfer was found among the grieving, taking advantage of the service to reach the nearby West Hill Golf Club.

  While the cemetery remains, the London Necropolis Company was largely erased in the Second World War, except for the frontage of its administrative offices in the Westminster Bridge Road.

  Commuters apart, people using stations in Bradshaw’s day were more likely to be shoppers than mourners, because the railways allowed ordinary people easy access of the city. They could refer to Bradshaw’s guide, which had plenty of recommendations, including the stylish Burlington Arcade off Piccadilly next to the Royal Academy. ‘The visitor should not omit to visit the Burlington arcade, the prettiest gallery in London. It is a facsimile of a portion of the Palais Royal, but the tradesmen who occupy these shops are of a less wealthy class and the place is considered as the fashionable gentleman’s lounge.’

  It is indeed as elegant as the French palace and, although not as large, it is certainly extremely long. The forerunner of the modern shopping mall, Burlington Arcade was conceived by Lord George Cavendish, ostensibly to make the shopping experience more pleasurable for his wife. Designer Samuel Ware envisaged ‘a Piazza for all Hardware, Wearing Apparel and Articles not Offensive in appearance nor smell’.

  Burlington Arcade opened in 1819, offering London shoppers luxury, choice and security.

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  Since its opening in 1819 the Arcade has been patrolled by Beadles, liveried officers in frock-coats and braided top hats. These were initially drawn from Lord Cavendish’s own regiment, the 10th Hussars, to enhance the safety of shoppers. They did so by enforcing the Arcade code, which meant no whistling, singing, playing of musical instruments, running, carrying of large parcels, opening of umbrellas or pushing of prams. Today four beadles continue to uphold the traditional values of Burlington Arcade. As a private police force, which incidentally pre-dates the Metropolitan Police, they have full authority to eject shoppers who fail to comply.

  The choice of shopping venues in London now is colossal, and the best way to visit them is by travelling on the underground. On 30 July 1900, the Central London Railway – now called the Central Line – opened between Bank and Shepherd’s Bush. It was nicknamed the ‘twopenny tube’ for its flat fare and tunnels, and ‘the tube’ came to be applied to all undergrounds.

  The armaments factory at Enfield established in 1816 was open to anyone who secured a government order permitting a visit.

  The Sutcliffe Gallery

  The maze of underground tunnels underfoot has often inhibited development in London. However, it didn’t prevent the installation of a splendid Masonic temple within the Great Eastern Hotel, which had been built in 1884 near Liverpool Street station as a railway hotel. The lavish Grecian temple was added in 1912 and featured 12 different types of marble and a mahogany throne. Its cost was a cool £50,000, equivalent to about £4 million today, but it had been sealed off until builders discovered it behind a false wall in 1997.

  One of the routes that radiate out of London is the line from Liverpool Street towards Harlow and Stansted. About half-way to Harlow, close to the station of Enfield Lock and the River Lea Navigation, is the site of the Royal Small Arms Factory. A housing estate now stands in its place, but this was once the most eminent gun manufacturer in the world. It was so famous that it became something of a tourist attraction. Bradshaw notes: ‘The environs of Enfield are exceedingly pretty and the scenery quite picturesque. A visit should be made to the Government Arms factory, an order for which must be previously obtained from the ordenance [sic] office, London.’

  The first arms factory was established at Enfield in 1816 by a government concerned at the price and quality of weapons on the open market. The nearby canal solved the problem of water supply needed for steam engines. Every element of the guns was made by hand. The original factory was substantially enlarged in 1854 in response to the Crimean War. It was then that American engineering techniques for mass production, first seen in Britain at the Great Exhibition, were installed.

  In time it became more than a factory, as shops, housing, a school and other facilities grew up around it. The station at Enfield Lock opened in 1855, when it was called Ordnance Factory. In 1860 a workforce of 1,000 was producing on average 1,744 rifles every week. By 1887 the workforce had increased by 140 per cent to cope with demand. After learning a trade at the small arms factory apprentices could reasonably hope to get a job anywhere, because their experience was so highly valued.

  A HOUSING ESTATE NOW STANDS IN ITS PLACE, BUT THIS WAS ONCE THE MOST EMINENT GUN MANUFACTURER IN THE WORLD

  Guns produced there took the name Enfield or its first two letters – En. Thus the most famous of its products today are probably the Lee-Enfield rifle, Bren light machine-guns and Sten submachine-guns. Its guns have played a part in every major war or armed skirmish that Britain has taken part in during the past 200 years.

  UNTIL THE AGE OF RAIL TRAVEL NEWMARKET WAS ACCUSTOMED TO HAVING ONLY ARISTOCRATS AS RACE-GOERS

  Our route continued around the edge of Essex, through Bishop’s Stortford and Saffron Walden towards Newmarket. We were heading into some of England’s flattest landscapes, so perhaps it’s no surprise that Newmarket became the beating heart of horse racing. However, although it was the first venue for regular horse racing, a prejudice against middle-class visitors arriving by rail nearly caused the town to be sidelined.

  Until the age of rail travel Newmarket was accustomed to having only aristocrats as race-goers. The influential Jockey Club, which is still based there, assumed that its future lay with society’s elite. When the Great Eastern Railway scheduled excursion trains to a station near Newmarket, the Jockey Club’s response was to arrange races with a start and finish so far apart that only the monied few who could accompany the riders on horseback or in carriages would watch.

  However, rival race tracks were keen to seize the initiative offered by the railways. Horses were transported for miles to make races more competitive. Spectators were welcomed by the hundred. Soon Newmarket found itself on the back foot as owners sought to race at courses most conveniently reached by train. By 1847 the Jockey Club was actively supporting plans for a rail link to its track. Afterwards ‘race specials’, often double the length of a normal train, were laid on to Newmarket from numerous major cities. Train-travelling politicians were in the habit of attending big races – then racing back to the Houses of Parliament for an evening debate.

  On the main line from London and on similarly flat ground lies Cambridge, crowned by its university buildings. ‘The University of Cambridge is second to no other in Europe,’ states Bradshaw. ‘On approaching the town, whether by rail or otherwise, the first object that meets the eye is the Chapel of King’s College.’

  Although the railway penetrated Cambridge in 1845, the station was built some distance from the city. Rumour had it that this was to make it harder for
male students to jump on the train for assignations in London. That may be speculation, but it is true that university dons retained the right to search the station for undergraduates and had an Act of Parliament passed so they could ask railway companies to ban students from travelling even if they had a valid ticket. Nor would the university countenance trains running on a Sunday through Cambridge station. This rule stayed in place until 1908.

  Cambridge University’s football club was one of the first to adopt new rules that took hand balls, body checks and high kicks out of the game.

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  However, the authorities at Cambridge were more forward-thinking when it came to football. Records show that in the sixteenth century football or something like it was being played at Cambridge, and in the nineteenth century it was the public school sport of choice. However, there was scant regard for an opponent’s well-being as players used hands as well as feet, and body checks, kicking and tripping to win. What’s more, each team played according to its own set of rules.

  In 1848 a meeting of University players was held in Cambridge which resulted in a definitive set of rules being agreed. Copies were pinned to the trees surrounding Parker’s Piece, the park in the middle of Cambridge which was a favourite spot for games. Although not universally accepted, the Cambridge rules did help to impose some order on an otherwise unruly and often violent game. (Games between ‘town’ and ‘gown’ were particularly feisty affairs.) They became the foundation of the rules drawn up in 1863 by the newly founded Football Association.

  The landmark cathedral at Ely, built in Norman times by Benedictine Monks, can be seen for miles and its awesome silhouette was an inspiration for pilgrims.