page_title: Christ's Hospital railway station
section_title: Unrealised ambitions and gradual decline
hierarchical_section_title: Christ's Hospital railway station / History / Unrealised ambitions and gradual decline
caption_attribution_description: Christ's Hospital railway station
context_page_description: Christ's Hospital railway station is near Horsham in West Sussex, England. It is 40 miles 7 chains down the line from London Bridge via Redhill. It was opened in 1902 by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway and was intended primarily to serve Christ's Hospital, a large independent school which had moved to the area in that year. It now also serves the rural area to the west of Horsham.
  Opened originally as Christ's Hospital, the station was until the mid-1960s an important junction with, in addition to the existing link to Arundel via Pulborough, connections to Guildford via Cranleigh and Brighton via Shoreham-by-Sea.
context_section_description: In the event, the LB&SCR's expectation of an income from the station to match the size of its premises would be defeated by two developments. Firstly, Christ's Hospital school only ever accommodated boarders; the LB&SCR had possibly not been informed of this when designing the station. Secondly, the anticipated residential development in the area did not materialise. This was largely because the school had purchased much of the land around the junction and had no desire to see their green fields filled with housing, the school having left London precisely to reestablish in greener surroundings. The LB&SCR was therefore left with a white elephant: the capacity and stature of the station being vastly out of proportion with its status as a useful rural interchange, rather than an important railway junction serving much of West Sussex.
  The station was undoubtedly a useful interchange with trains travelling in four directions, but its own passenger receipts remained low due to the fact that its use by people unconnected with the school was limited. By 1953 the loop line intended for school trains was rusty due to lack of use. Much of the station's usefulness was lost in the 1960s when the Steyning Line and Cranleigh Line were closed, both having been put forward for closure in The Reshaping of British Railways report of 1963. The last train from Guildford ran on 14 July 1965 at 1855 and returned at 2034. The event was marked at Christ's Hospital station by pupils from Christ's Hospital school who sang Abide with Me as the train pulled away. The buildings on the Guildford platforms were demolished shortly afterwards.
  The 1960s marked the start of a period of rationalisation which began with the closure of the goods yard on 4 September 1961, it having been little used in latter days. South Box closed around the same time. For a time the station was itself threatened with closure but survived following a public outcry and the presentation of a petition with 3,046 signatures to the Queen. The station's name was also changed to Christ's Hospital, with timetables published from 1968 showing the change.
caption: Postcard from 1917 showing Platform 1.
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