Hook station serves the town of Hook

Hook, North Hampshire

Hook is a large village within the Hart district of northern Hampshire, England. It is situated east of Basingstoke and northeast of Southampton, on the A30 national route, just north of Junction 5 of the M3 motorway....

 and surrounding villages in Hampshire

Hampshire

Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...

, southern England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. There are two platforms serving the outer pair of tracks while the centre pair of tracks have no platforms and are used by fast services between the South Coast and the West Country

West Country

The West Country is an informal term for the area of south western England roughly corresponding to the modern South West England government region. It is often defined to encompass the historic counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset and the City of Bristol, while the counties of...

. Platform One also has a small cafe that is open for the early weekday morning commute.

Most services to and from this station terminate at either Basingstoke

Basingstoke

Basingstoke is a town in northeast Hampshire, in south central England. It lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon. It is southwest of London, northeast of Southampton, southwest of Reading and northeast of the county town, Winchester. In 2008 it had an estimated population of...

 or London Waterloo

Waterloo station

Waterloo station, also known as London Waterloo, is a central London railway terminus and London Underground complex. The station is owned and operated by Network Rail and is close to the South Bank of the River Thames, and in Travelcard Zone 1....

 and run every half hour during the weekday and every hour at the weekends.

The railway station is situated next to a Tesco

Tesco

Tesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues and the second-largest measured by profits...

 superstore and is located within a 5 minute walk of Hook.

History

The railway that runs through Hook was built in 1839, but Hook only got its railway station in 1883 after a lengthy campaign by local landowners. It was built by London and South Western Railway

London and South Western Railway

The London and South Western Railway was a railway company in England from 1838 to 1922. Its network extended from London to Plymouth via Salisbury and Exeter, with branches to Ilfracombe and Padstow and via Southampton to Bournemouth and Weymouth. It also had many routes connecting towns in...

in their typical style. It was built with two platforms and two tracks , but was expanded to four platforms and tracks in 1901-2 as Hook grew in size. The middle island platform was removed around the 1960s but its tracks still survive.

In 1940, a bomb landed on the tracks a little way from the station. Worried it could damage the tracks, six soldiers were called to dispose of the bomb. Unfortunately, the bomb went off killing the six soldiers and injuring their sergeant. A group of local people have arranged to have a memorial plaque to them displayed in the station.