Hartfield railway station

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Hartfield
Location
Place Hartfield
Area Wealden, East Sussex
Grid reference TQ480362
Operations
Pre-grouping London, Brighton and South Coast Railway
Post-grouping Southern Railway
Southern Region of British Railways
Platforms 1
History
1 October 1866 Opened
7 May 1962 Closed to goods traffic
2 January 1967 Closed to passenger traffic
Disused railway stations in the United Kingdom
Closed railway stations in Britain
A B C D–F G H–J K–L M–O P–R S T–V W–Z
Portal icon UK Railways portal

Hartfield was a railway station serving Hartfield, England, on the Three Bridges to Tunbridge Wells Central Line which closed in 1967, a casualty of the Beeching Axe.[1]

The station building is now divided between a day nursery and a private house. The route of the railway line is now a cycle path (the Forest Way).[2] A.A. Milne, the creator of Winnie-the-Pooh, lived in Hartfield.

The station appears in a delightful British Transport Film entitled Farmer Moving South, which recounted the moving of the entire farm stock of Sir Robert Ropner by special train from Skutterskelfe Hall in Yorkshire to Hartfield in December 1950. The entire move took 30 hours and was nine hours late in arriving at East Grinstead on 15 December.[3] The film is available on a BFI DVD.

Preceding station Disused railways Following station
Forest Row   British Rail
Southern Region
Three Bridges to Tunbridge Wells Central Line		   Withyham

Reopening

With regard to the possible reopening of the remaining section of the line from Tunbridge Wells to Three Bridges, number of obstacles would appear to stand in the way of such action, most notably:

1) An industrial site currently occupies the former location of Forest Row railway station as well as a small recycling centre to west.

2) The formation has been built across in several places notably in East Grinstead where about one mile of the trackbed from Station Road to the Lewes Road tunnel has been taken over for a relief road (the A22 ironically named "Beechings Way" after Richard Beeching whose recommendations closed the railway line). As there is no feasible alternative route into the station, this road would need to be reconverted back to rail. Any such action would in all likelihood result in a cut in capacity on an already highly congested road network.

3) The site of Grange Road has disappeared under a small parade of shops as well as housing which block 0.64 miles of the formation.

Gallery

  • Remains of the platform from the cycle path

  • Hartfield station in 2005

  • Another view of Hartfield station

See also

References

  1. ↑ Hartfield railway station on Subterranea Britannica
  2. ↑ "Forest Way" (PDF). East Sussex CC. Retrieved 2007-08-12. 
  3. ↑ Gould, David (1983). Three Bridges to Tunbridge Wells. The Oakwood Press. p. 47. ISBN 978-0-85361-299-5. 

Coordinates: 51°06′22″N 0°06′44″E / 51.1060°N 0.1122°E / 51.1060; 0.1122


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