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Horsham railway station serves
the town of Horsham in West Sussex, England. It is 37 miles 56
chains (60.7 km) down the line from London Bridge, measured via
Redhill, on the Arun Valley Line and the Sutton & Mole Valley
Lines, and train services are provided by Southern. Services on
the Sutton & Mole Valley Line from London Victoria via Dorking
terminate here, the others continue into the Arun Valley: a
half-hourly service from London Victoria to Southampton Central
or Portsmouth Harbour (alternating) and Bognor Regis. These
trains usually divide here with the front
(Southampton/Portsmouth) portion travelling fast (next stop
Barnham) and the rear (Bognor Regis) half providing stopping
services.
A new Thameslink service (TL5) entered service in March 2018,
running from Horsham to Peterborough (via Redhill). This now
connects London Bridge, Farringdon and Kings Cross St Pancras in
central London, through north London, to Huntingdon and
Peterborough.
Horsham would have been an important midway point in two of the
original proposals for a London to Brighton railway via the Adur
valley but in the event Sir John Rennie's proposed direct line
through Three Bridges (in east Crawley) and Haywards Heath was
given parliamentary approval. As a result, the original Horsham
station was the terminus of a single track branch line from
Three Bridges opened by the London Brighton and South Coast
Railway (LBSCR) in February 1848.
Between 1859 and 1867, the station was enlarged on several
occasions to coincide with the doubling of the branch line from
Three Bridges; the extension of the railway from Horsham along
the Arun Valley Line; the opening of new lines from Horsham to
Shoreham via Steyning and from Christ's Hospital to Guildford.
Finally, in 1867, a new route to Dorking, Leatherhead and thence
to London, was opened. The station was again partially rebuilt
and resignalled, with three signal boxes, in 1875.
The present station was built by the Southern Railway in the
International Modern Style in 1938 to coincide with the
electrification of the line. The building was designed by James
Robb Scott and is grade II listed, see external links below. The
lines to Guildford and Shoreham both fell victim to the Beeching
Axe in the mid 1960s, the former being closed to passengers on
14 June 1965 and the latter on 7 March 1966.
In September 2011, the station frontage was closed to undergo
extensive refurbishment work to the main ticket hall. It
reopened late in 2012 with a new side entrance, internal lift
access, relocated barriers and stairway, a new ticket office,
and new information screens. The platforms received a rebuild of
the roofing and refurbished waiting rooms. Previously, the
building was shared with Henfield Hire, who vacated in order to
give the floor space needed to create the new features and new
ceiling and lights and so completing a complete reconfiguration
of the layout.
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