Lewes railway station serves the town of Lewes in East Sussex, England. It has five platforms and is on the East Coastway Line. Train services are provided by Southern.
The station has a café and there is a taxi office on the main forecourt. There is a small taxi rank outside.
The station platforms are arranged in a "V" shape, with a large courtyard in between, which is bound by the tracks (platforms 2 & 3) on two sides and the station building on the third side. The two-floor building, with the entrance from the top floor, is accompanied with a gallery, which extends to the other platforms (1, 4 & 5) as the passenger bridge.
There have been many changes during the lifetime of the station.
The station was originally built as a terminus on the Brighton line. This station became inconvenient after extra tracks were laid to Hastings, meeting the Brighton line at a junction just west of Lewes Station (i.e. towards Brighton), necessitating reversals for trains serving Lewes. Capacity increases also became desirable because of new direct links to London. This first station was therefore replaced; the original booking hall with grand classical columns outside survived until the 1960s but was then demolished.
The new station was itself extensively remodelled some time after a new through line was laid, effectively extending what had been the spur to the original station.
Not all of the lines serving Lewes Station survived the 20th century. The Wealden Line had headed north to Uckfield and on to London via Eridge — this line also had trains to Tunbridge Wells West. This line has been closed and lifted between Lewes and Uckfield. Branching off the Lewes to Uckfield section at Culver Farm was the lower portion of the Bluebell Railway, a portion of which remains as a preserved railway. Evidence of the line closures remains in the form of filled-in trackbeds at former, now redundant platforms in the station.
Timeline
Line from Brighton opened
A terminus was provided for services arriving from Brighton (1846–57).
27 June 1846
Line is extended from Lewes to Hastings
A platform is provided, called "Ham (or Southover)", slightly west of the divergence for the Hastings line (1846–48).
2 October 1847
Keymer Junction to Lewes line opened
Platforms (going by the name of Pinwell) are built opposite the Terminus, west of the Hasting line divergence, serving trains to and from the Hasting direction (1847–57).
1857
A new station is built at the divergence of the Keymer line
This was the first station at this site, the station building being of a Swiss chalet style (1857–89).
1 October 1886
A new junction for the realigned Wealden Line opened
The alignment of this line appears to have passed through the location of the original terminus; the station goods yard also being at this location. Until this date the Wealden line joined the Keymer line at a junction between the north portal of Lewes Tunnel and Cooksbridge Station.
17 June 1889
Current station opened.
The 1857 station is totally rebuilt and the track layout changed; this new station is the one still in use today.
On 5 November 1960, Lewes suffered severe flooding, legend has it that the Borough Surveyor requested that the London Platforms be blown up to allow flood water to escape via the railway track-bed. The British Railways district Engineer declined to co-operate. In the 1960s, the original 1846 terminus building fronting the public street (Friars Walk), was demolished.