Category:Brighton Station: Difference between revisions

Brighton Station's blue roof supports [image info]

Brighton Station, blue girderwork including roundels with the helmet and dolphins of Brighton's coat of arms [image info]

Brighton Station approach, showing "cliff" [image info]

Brighton Station, view from the top of the "cliff" [image info]

"Black Five" steam loco 44932 at Brighton Station, 8th June 2014, for the "Seaford150" 150th anniversary of the Brighton to Seaford line. The area to the rear of the photograph was originally occupied by the locomotive works [image info]

Brighton Railway Station, "BTN" (built 1840) was originally a simpler white rectangular Italianate building designed by David Mocatta, with an unbridged Trafalgar Street running downhill in front of it. Over the following years, the forecourt and the eastern side of the station were extended, Trafalgar Street was bridged (in three stages), glassed roofing was put over the platform areas, and the current permanent awning with its vine-tendril design was built over the forecourt.

The bulk of Brighton Toy and Model Museum is built into these slightly later arches supporting the station forecourt, with some extension back under the main station structure.

Alternative locations

Other locations were originally considered for the terminus of the London-to-Brighton line. On suggestion was to put the station just north of Western Road, near the Brunswick Estate, but residents objected to the idea that their area might be then be filled with visiting Londoners.

Another suggested location was at or around "The Level" - the wedge of open land at the top of the the chain of green areas running up from Old Steine. Putting the station in the top of this valley area would have been more convenient for visitors as it would have provided a grand route down to the most popular section of the seafront, but would have involved a more severe gradient for the track, and having a valley on each side would have made it difficult to build connecting lines to other towns to either side of Brighton.

The station was finally constructed by building to between these two locations, by excavating a vast amount of material from the hillside and setting the station into the side of a hill, creating a brick "cliff" along one side of the station track. The line was then able to straddle the valley area to the East with the London Road Viaduct.

Trafalgar Street

Over the rest of the C19th, a narrow bridge was added over Trafalgar Street, and then the bridge was widened eastwards, and then widened once again. As you walk down Trafalgar Street from the West, you can see the three generations of ironwork that represent the three successive phases of bridge-building.

Opposite the station forecourt (and opposite the museum) was a large hotel whose location is now occupied by the bus stop area in front of the station. The hotel had a basement entrance on Trafalgar Street that is still visible, and (conveniently for its guests) was almost opposite the station's lower-level entrance.

Trafalgar Street station entrance

The old lower (disused) entrance to the station (a square arch with 45-degree corners) still exists on Trafalgar Street. This sealed-off entrance leads to the abandoned level beneath the platform of Brighton Station, which used to house baths and service businesses, with stairs emerging inside the current station area.

Disused unit

Alongside the old lower entrance is a sealed-off unit that was a barber's shop, and was then reused as a small recording studio. The next four units make up the Museum.

The Museum Arches

The four main arches used by the Museum are underneath the station forecourt, facing Trafalgar Road, occupying the rest of the old under-arch region. To the right of the Museum entrance is a large wooden doorway that marks the old, now-hidden entrance to the cab road that ran alongside the old station exterior wall.

The Museum's arches have been used for different purposes over the years. The smaller arched rooms that branch off the Museum lobby and are used for Museum offices and resource rooms, were originally used as stables, and each room still has a square trapdoor in the arched ceiling at the back of each room, where bales of hay were dropped down to feed the horses.

The next three arches were used to store wine or beer, and the red equilateral triangle on a white background above the outside of each arch, on Trafalgar Street corresponds to the logo of the Bass brewery company. This logo was one of the first UK registered trademarks.

The section of exterior wall along the length of the museum has a mural depicting the Brighton Belle electric Pullman train, painted in 2010.

The Cab Road

Brighton Station's Cab Road ran alongside the station's original eastward exterior wall. The route was bridged-over when the station building was extended outwards to the east, and new arched units were built on its other side.

The cab road is now effectively a brick-lined tunnel that separates Brighton Toy and Model Museum from the businesses under the newer station arches. The entrance to the road/tunnel is behind the large wooden door directly to the right of the Museum's main entrance.

• http://www.sussexhistory.com/bton_cab_road.htm

Brighton Station Goods Tunnel was used for a while as a firing range.

• http://pastfinders.com/sussexhistory/bton_goods_tunnel.htm

Brighton Works

Brighton Locomotive Works was partly situated on the adjacent land to the immediate east of the station, and was one of the country's biggest locomotive production facilities. The recent buildings to the East of the station are mostly built on the site of the old Works, and many of the new place names are names associated with railways (like Fenchurch Walk).

Not all of this recent development is yet listed or shown on online maps but can usually be seen on mapping websites in "satellite view".

Queens Road

Queens Road runs directly away from the station to the Clock Tower, after which it continues down to the sea, as West Street.

The upper part of Queens Road was built for access to the station, and since the station was so high up, part of Queens Road had to be raised with the help of more brick arches to create a continuous slope up to the station. as a result some of the buildings alongside Queens Road had to have new entrances cut into what had previously been their first floors, with their original ground floors ending up underground as basements. For a while, tunnels linked these old entrances below the new road level.

Other external references

• Basil K. Cooper Rail Centres: Brighton (Ian Allan, 1981, 1991) ISBN 0711011551
• Image of Brighton Station, in its original configuration (schoolnet.co.uk)
• Images of England