page_title: London Bridge station
section_title: London Brighton and South Coast Railway station
hierarchical_section_title: London Bridge station / History / London Brighton and South Coast Railway station
caption_attribution_description: English: London Bridge stations c.1853. The Brighton Railway station is to the left and the South Eastern on the right
context_page_description: London Bridge is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in Southwark, south-east London. It occupies a large area on three levels immediately south-east of London Bridge, from which it takes its name. The main line station is the oldest railway station in London fare zone 1 and one of the oldest in the world having opened in 1836. It is one of two main line termini in London to the south of the River Thames and is the fourth-busiest station in London, handling over 50 million customers a year.
  The station was originally opened by the London and Greenwich Railway as a local service. It subsequently served the London and Croydon Railway, the London and Brighton Railway and the South Eastern Railway, thus becoming an important London terminus. It was rebuilt in 1849 and again in 1864 to provide more services and increase capacity. Local services from London Bridge began to be electrified in the beginning of the 20th century, and had spread to national routes by the 1930s. The station was extensively rebuilt by British Rail during the 1970s, along with a comprehensive re-signalling scheme and track alignment.
context_section_description: The LB&SCR took over the unfinished joint station, which they demolished in 1849 and opened a temporary station in 1850. This was rebuilt and enlarged in 1853-4 to deal with the additional traffic from the lines to Sydenham and Crystal Palace. A three-storey box-like structure in Italian style was erected, with the name of the railway emblazoned on the top parapet.
  In 1859 the LC&DR applied to the LB&SCR for running powers from Sydenham to London Bridge, but was refused. However, some ticketing arrangement was made between the two companies as the LC&DR advertised connections to and from London Bridge in its timetables in The Times and Bradshaw's Railway Guide for July 1861. This arrangement was short-lived pending the construction of the LC&DR line to Holborn Viaduct.
  The LB&SCR also built the Terminus Hotel at the station in 1861. It was designed by Henry Currey, architect for St Thomas's Hospital and had 150 public rooms over seven stories. It was unsuccessful because it was on the south bank of the river, so was turned into offices for the railway in 1893. It was destroyed by bombing in 1941.
  An Act of Parliament of 1862 gave the LB&SCR power to enlarge the station further. Over the next few years under the direction of new Chief Engineer Frederick Banister, the company built four more platform-faces in an adjoining area to the south of its existing station to cope with additional traffic generated by the completion of the South London Line and other suburban lines to Victoria station. This had a single-span trussed-arch roof measuring 88 by 655 ft (27 by 200 m), and was designed by J. Hawkshaw and Banister. During the first decade of the twentieth century LB&SCR station at London Bridge was again enlarged, but overall London Bridge station remained a "sprawling confusion".
  The chaotic nature of the station at the turn of the century was described in John Davidson's poem, "London Bridge":
  Inside the station, everything's so old,
  
  So inconvenient, of such manifold
  
  Perplexity, and, as a mole might see,
  
  So strictly what a station shouldn't be,
  
  That no idea minifies its crude
  
  And yet elaborate ineptitude.
  — John Davidson, Fleet Street and Other Poems
  The South London Line from London Bridge to Victoria was electrified in 1909 with an experimental overhead system. It was successful and other suburban services were electrified including the line to Crystal Palace in 1912. Because of World War I, the line to Croydon was not electrified until 1920.
caption: The two stations, as seen from the line c. 1853
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