Kemptown railway station

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Kemptown railway station was a railway station in the town of Brighton (now the city of Brighton and Hove), East Sussex, England, UK. It is no longer extant.

The station was named after the area it was located in, Kemptown, which in turn took its name from Kemp Town, a 19th century housing development in the area, approximately two miles to the east of the centre of Brighton.

Because of rivalries between the London Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) and London, Chatham and Dover Railway, the LB&SCR decided in 1869 to build a short but expensive branch line from Brighton railway station to Kemptown, chiefly as a blocking move to prevent another line being laid into the town. The branch line with its costly viaducts and tunnel never paid its way, being twice as long as the equivalent journey by road, and it was closed to passenger traffic as early as 1933 and to freight by 1971. It also saw sporadic closures during the 1910s.

The site is now the Freshfield Industrial Estate. The portal of the railway tunnel leading through to the site of the Hartington Road Halt (now a block of flats) and eventually to the also-lost Lewes Road Station, may still be viewed from the compound of a self-storage warehouse. The line joined the main line between Brighton and Lewes a short distance after London Road Station.