Upper Sydenham railway station
Encyclopedia
Peckham Rye railway station
Peckham Rye railway station is a station on Rye Lane in the centre of the shopping district of Peckham in South London. It opened on 1 December 1865 for LC&DR trains and on 13 August 1886 for LB&SCR trains...
to a terminus at Crystal Palace
Crystal Palace railway station
Crystal Palace railway station is in the London Borough of Bromley in south London. It is located in the Anerley area between the town centres of Crystal Palace and Penge...
in 1862, in order to serve the attraction of the Crystal Palace.
History
Upper Sydenham station was the penultimate station on the route before Crystal Palace, sitting in the wooded area at the top of Sydenham Hill, overlooking Dulwich and Sydenham. The station and the line was poorly used despite new houses being built in the area as passengers preferred to use other stations near-by (Sydenham HillSydenham Hill railway station
Sydenham Hill railway station is in the London Borough of Southwark in south London. The station serves Sydenham Hill and parts of Sydenham and Dulwich. It is in Travelcard Zone 3, and the station and all trains are operated by Southeastern...
, Crystal Palace (Lower Level)
Crystal Palace railway station
Crystal Palace railway station is in the London Borough of Bromley in south London. It is located in the Anerley area between the town centres of Crystal Palace and Penge...
and Sydenham) which were on more direct routes. The line was one of the first of the former South Eastern and Chatham Railway
South Eastern and Chatham Railway
The South Eastern and Chatham Railway Companies Joint Management Committee , known by its shorter name of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway was a working union of two neighbouring rival railways, the South Eastern Railway and London, Chatham and Dover Railway , that operated services between...
to be electrified
Railway electrification in Great Britain
Railway electrification in Great Britain started towards of the 19th century. A great range of voltages have been used in the intervening period using both overhead lines and third rails, however the most common standard for mainline services is now 25 kV AC using overhead lines and the...
by Southern Railway
Southern Railway (Great Britain)
The Southern Railway was a British railway company established in the 1923 Grouping. It linked London with the Channel ports, South West England, South coast resorts and Kent...
, under "South Eastern Electrification - Stage 1" in July 1925. The destruction of the Crystal Palace in 1936 saw patronage reduced.
During the second world war the branch line suffered damage from enemy action. After the war the cost of repairing the war damage with declining receipts led to the decision to close the line to close on the 20 September 1954, the first permanent closure of an Southern Electric line. The dismantling of the station took place in 1957.
Current
Today all that remains of Upper Sydenham Station is the booking office and station house, which is now a private residence on Wells Park Road, the railway tunnel which is now blocked off but intact as well as some ruined huts and a few muddy hints of where the line and platform once ran. It is thought that the station platforms were buried when the area was landscaped and some platform fragments are visible in the ground adjacent to the tunnel mouth. The station's location sits in Dulwich Woods, providing a popular local footpath.Further reading
- Crystal Palace (High Level) and Catford Loop by V Mitchell & K Smith, Middleton Press, 1991
- The Railway through Sydenham Hill Wood, From the Nun's Head to the Screaming Alice by Mathew Frith, The Friends of the Great North Wood and London Wildlife Trust leaflet 1995
- London's Local Railways by A A Jackson, David & Charles, 1978
- The Crystal Palace (High Level) Branch by W Smith, British Railway Journal 28, 1989