Brighton railway station is the principal railway station in the city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, on the south coast of the United Kingdom. The station was built by the London & Brighton Railway in 1840, initially connecting Brighton to Shoreham-by-Sea, westwards along the coast, and shortly afterwards connecting it to London Bridge 51 miles (82 km) to the north, and to the county town of Lewes to the east. In 1846, the railway became the London Brighton and South Coast Railway following mergers with other railways with lines between Portsmouth and Hastings.
With almost 16.1 million passenger entries and exits between April 2011 and March 2012, Brighton is the seventh-busiest station in the UK outside London. It is managed by Southern.
The London and Brighton Railway (L&BR) built a passenger station, goods station, locomotive depot and railway works on a difficult site on the northern edge of Brighton. This site was 0.5 miles (0.80 km) from, and 70 feet (21 m) above the sea shore, and had involved considerable excavation work to create a reasonable gradient from Patcham Tunnel.
The passenger station was a three-storey building in an Italianate style, designed by David Mocatta in 1839–40 which incorporated the head office of the railway company. (This building still stands but has been largely obscured by later additions.) The station is said to have many similarities to the Nine Elms railway station of the London and Southampton Railway (1838) designed by Sir William Tite. Baker & Son were paid £9766 15s for the station building between May and August 1841. The platform accommodation was built by John Urpeth Rastrick and consisted of four pitched roofs each 250 ft long (76 m). It opened for trains to Shoreham on 11 May 1840, and in September 1841 for trains to London.
The station site was extended for the opening of the Brighton Lewes and Hastings Railway in June 1846 (which had been purchased by the L&BR in 1845). In July 1846, the L&BR merged with other railways to form the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway.
Further extensions to the station occurred during the mid-19th century but only a limited number of additional platforms could be added because of the awkward sloping site. By the late 1870s the facilities were inadequate for the growing volume of traffic and so the existing platforms were lengthened to be able to accommodate two trains, and the three separate roofs were replaced by an overall roof during 1882/1883.
The station currently has a large double-spanned curved glass and iron roof covering the platforms, which was substantially renovated in 1999 and 2000.
At the front of the station is a taxi rank and a bus station. A tunnel runs under the station which once provided an open-air cab run at a shallower gradient than Trafalgar Street outside, which had been the main approach to the station before the construction of Queen's Road (which was financially supported by the railway, and intended to improve access). The cab run was covered (forming a tunnel) when the station above was extended over it on cast iron columns. The cab run remains in situ but has been sealed at the station end.
Railway station. The original station, of which only the forebuilding remains in part, is of 1841 by David Mocatta; it was enlarged, and the platforms extended, in 1852-4; the train sheds date from 1882-3 and were designed by HE Wallis, and the canopy in front of the station is of the same date. Stucco to the original building, roof obscured by parapet; additions in yellow and brown brick in English and Flemish bonds with red brick dressings, and some timber; the train sheds of cast- and wrought-iron with a roof of glass and timber.
EXTERIOR: the forebuildings of 2 and 3 storeys, 15-window range to the original building, with an addition of 3-window range to the west. The original building was Italianate in style, with single-storey wings of 3-window range with a round-arched colonnade between, and shallower wings, also of 3-window range, to the upper floors; the ground floor now consists simply of a flat, stuccoed front with round-arched openings and no original features, except that the (now stuccoed) ground floor of the western addition retains C19 round-arched metal glazing bars.
The first floor has flat-arched windows with moulded stucco architraves and alternating triangular and segmental pediments, and long-and-short quoins to the wings; and segmental-arched windows to the western addition. The original building has a modillion cornice, and an attic storey to the wings, with flat-arched architraved windows between pilasters; balustraded parapet between the wings except for a centrepiece, of later date than the original building, consisting of a clock set in a giant foliate moulding resting on the parapet.
The iron canopy in front of the station is of 7 equal bays from west to east, with a further longer bay covering the space between the forebuildings and the range of buildings to the east; the first 2 bays from the west are one bay deep from north to south, and the rest is 2 bays deep; the roof is pitched, so that the canopy presents one gable end to Terminus Road and 2 to Queen's Road. The cast-iron columns are fluted in their lower part and rest on an octagonal base, with arcaded capitals; spandrel brackets decorated with sexfoils; the light trusses between bays are decorated with openwork and have Brighton dolphins at their apex; wrought-iron scrolling frieze along the outer faces of the canopy. 3 cast-iron columns flank the traffic entrances to Queen's Road.
The train shed is laid out on a slight curve, and consists of cast-iron columns carrying iron trusses and a roof of glass and timber; it is 2-and-a-half bays wide from east to west, and 21 bays long, from north to south, in the principal bays; the half-bay is on the east side and is 12 bays long, narrowing to its northern end; on the west side there is a shallow extension, 9 bays long, to the south, and the 10 bays to the north of that have a screen wall of yellow brick with blank arcading. The cast-iron columns are quatrefoil in plan on octagonal bases,with fluted capitals; they are stamped 'PATENT SHAFT AND AXLETREE CO 1882 WEDNESBURY'; the north-south spandrels are filled with openwork decorated with Brighton's dolphins, and the main trusses form segmental curves under a pitched roof with scissor-trusses between.
East of the forebuildings is a range of mainly single-storey buildings, in yellow brick with red-brick dressings, and round-arched and segmental openings: 7 openings to the shallower, southern end, 12 to the northern end; flanking piers and a cornice and parapet form frames around these openings; there is a wooden, first-floor addition over the northern end. Return in Terminus Road: probably largely designed by HE Wallis, 1882; yellow brick laid in English bond with dressing of red brick; there are 3 stages, starting from the south:
(1) a 2-storey range of 13 windows, divided into 5 bays, with various ground-floor openings now much altered, and first-floor windows in groups of 2 and 3 with stepped segmental arches in gauged red brick; stepped red brick parapet;
(2) a single-storey range of 4 bays windowed as for the 2-storey range and with stacks rising from the piers;
(3) a screen wall of 4 bays divided into bays with a red brick cornice as in the earlier stages. North of this the wall is largely rebuilt.
The station is built on a steep slope from east to west, and there are underbuildings in Trafalgar Street and on the east side of the building, in brown brick with red brick dressings; the easternmost range of the station forecourt buildings, designed by HE Wallis, 1882, is carried out over the yard on cast-iron columns with decorative openwork brackets. David Mocatta was architect to the London and Brighton Railway Company, and designed many stations and bridges on the London-to-Brighton line.