Viva Lewes Issue 117 June 2016

BRICKS AND MORTAR
Lewes Railway Station
Third time lucky
“It was the most incomplete and injudicious
station ever erected.” This pretty damning
description of Lewes’ first railway station, built
in 1847 in Friars Walk, was by an executive of
the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway
(LB&SCR), at the 1858 AGM of the company,
trying to persuade shareholders to invest in a
new station. He wasn’t talking about the station
building, a fine classical structure which wasn’t
demolished until the 1960s. He was talking about
the fact that trains going from Brighton to Hastings
had to back out of what was originally built
as a terminus at Lewes, before continuing their
journey east, which was, by all accounts, quite a
palaver, as it had to effect ‘fits and starts with the
assistance of the points’ (Brighton Gazette).
The money was found, and a new station was
built in 1857, very near the current one, on Station
Road. The look of the place – it is usually described
as being ‘Swiss chalet-style’ - was popular
with the press, and presumably the public. And
the service was much more efficient, though
not completely so, as the line coming in from
London curved very sharply before entering the
station, which meant trains had to go extremely
slowly, often causing delays for trains coming in
on other lines. An Act was passed in 1884 giving
powers for a substantial realignment, which
necessitated the building of a third station.
By now the extremely capable Frederick Gale
Banister was Chief Engineer of the LB&SCR,
and he hired the contractors Joseph Firbank
and Crawley building firm Longley’s to build
something that would last a little longer than its
predecessors. The new station was constructed
alongside the extant station, and the first train to
go through it, at 6.15am on March 9th, was the
‘empty from Brighton to Uckfield’, according to
the subsequent Sussex Express, which reports on
workers toiling overnight to adjust the railway:
‘The night was bitterly cold and the hammers rang
sharply upon the steel metals in the clear frosty
air’. ‘After that, ‘all the trains from the Eastgrinstead
[sic] and Tunbridge Wells, Hastings,
Eastbourne and Seaford lines to Brighton ran over
the new roads.’ It seems there was little fanfare,
perhaps as the station wasn’t fully opened for
goods trains until July. The Express reporter
gives a glowing report of the entrance building,
pointing out its ‘lantern roof’, ‘beautifully carved
stone capitals’ and ‘noble booking hall’.
Banister had succeeded where his predecessors
had failed, and Lewes Railway Station became
known as one of the jewels in the crown of the
LB&SCR stations (Banister had a love of Italianate-style
architecture and this was reflected in
many of the station buildings he commissioned,
particularly those designed by his son-in-law
Thomas Myres). The station’s complicated role
as a hub for trains going in three different directions
made it nationally famous; postcards were
made with the pun ‘just a few lines from Lewes’.
Thanks to Reeves for the use of this picture of the
new station under construction, 1889. Alex Leith
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