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Haltside Station

Notes and queries: general query

The following query was posted by Geoff Hart on 28/08/2001:

"I used to live at 102 Lyndhurst Rd, Hove many years ago and believe that the house was originally built for the manager of the Southern Railway Co. Below the garden was a small station called "Haltside" which is also the name of the house. Is it possible to get photos of the station from anywhere and any other information about the station or house? There was a hint of a set of steps leading down the embankment from the Holland Road bridge years ago, but they are probably overgrown now."

Response 1:
Posted by Pat Benham on 28/08/2001:

"The station there used to be called Holland Road Halt. As a kid towards the end of the 1940s I used to go to the top of the steps with friends which was a good vantage point to watch the trains. The steps were entered via a gate on the south west corner of the bridge - just up the road from the Palmeira Hotel on the same side.

The station was looked after by a single railwayman in an office on the north side platform. I have a vague idea that there was a flight of steps on that side, and believe passengers on that side may have used it. Not too sure about steps from the house in Lyndhurst Road.

On old maps Holland Road Halt is called Hove Station. The present Hove station was then called Cliftonville Station. The keeper at the Halt used to get bored and sometimes invited us into the hut to share the warmth of his paraffin stove."

Response 2:
Posted by Martin Snow on 29/08/2001:

"Holland Road Halt was opened with wooden platforms on 3-9-1905 and closed 7-5-1956. There are pictures in "Brighton to Worthing", by Vic Mitchell and Keith Smith, Middleton Press ISBN 090652037.

The first 'Hove' station was on the other side of the road bridge (the eastern side). It was opened 12-5-1840 and closed 1-3-1880. A goods/coal yard was opened on the site, which is now an industrial estate (Lyon Close?).

Today's Hove station was opened as Cliftonville Station on 1-10-1863. It was called Cliftonville and West Brighton station until 1893, when it became Hove and West Brighton. It was called Hove Station about 1895.

Recent Railtrack maintenance work tends to obliterate lineside features, so it is unlikely there is anything left of Holland Road Halt to see, I recall looking out and thinking that there had been something there in the 60's or 70's. There do not appear to be any steps for no. 102 in the photos in the book."

Response 3:
Posted by John Blackwell on 16/09/2001:

"The station referred to is definitely Holland Road Halt as detailed by Martin Snow. From the street directories 102 Lyndhurst Road was built C1914 and was occupied by a John James Robertson from 1914 to 1948, i.e. during the existence of the Southern Railway 1923-1948 when it was nationalised as British Railways.

Therefore this gentlemen could have been a manager/officer of SR and conjecturally retired on nationalisation. Regarding the steps, the layout has the garden well above the level of the old platform and as there was not a footbridge access would be to the Brighton direction only."

Response 4:
Posted by Jan Marshall on 15-01-2003:

"The goods/coal yard remained until the late 1970s, when the present office and warehouses were built. I lived in the area during the early 70s, and my friends and I once walked down the small pathway at the back of Lyndhurst Road, accessed from Holland Road. I have a vague recollection that one of them did get through the fence there and walk down the bank a little way and seem to recall they were using steps. On the south side the arches of the bridge were filled in. These belonged to the firm Rayner Optical Company, who used to own the large building which is now flats on the west side of the road. I do believe that these arch rooms were once the station area."

Response 5:
Posted by David Shelton on 09-05-2003:

"I lived in Lyndhurst Road from 1953-1969 and remember the old Holland Road Halt station. There were steps down at each side of the road bridge on the west side, leading to small platforms. The entrances to the station were bricked up in early 60s, and you could see bits of the steps for a while later.

"There was a phone box there on the south side of the bridge, and people used to park down the west side of Holland Road on that side as well. One thing I remember were the steam trains, whose sparks set the banks alight every summer, and the clank of shunting operations in the goods yard, now called Lyon Close."

This page was added on 22/03/2006.

Comments:

Thanks to all of you who have contributed to my query regarding 102 Lyndhurst Road. It has certainly thrown some light on the unknown. Perhaps someone remembers the last steam train run along the line? I was lucky enough to be standing on the rockery and looking over the garden wall when the engine, bedecked in bunting, slowly made its way past. (My father would not have been impressed if he'd known we - my brother and I - were scrambling over the rocks to see the trains in the cutting some twenty feet below the garden level.)
By Geoff Hart (23/12/2003)
In Victoria Station, London, at the western exit (but at the front of the station) there is a large ceramic tile map of the Southern Region. It must be about 50 or more years old. It shows Holland Road station clearly.
By Vince Meegan (30/12/2005)

I found this website and thread from a Google search on Holland Road Halt, because as I get older the earliest memories I have are getting clearer. We used to live in Brunswick Place and my Dad used to push me in the pram (1950-52, I hope and assume no later!) to watch the trains through the wooden fence on the south western corner of the Holland Road bridge. I remember the Horsham train calling there with an M7 and push pull set. Later on my Dad would push me round to Lyndhurst Road to watch the London trains. On the way home we would stop off at the electricity generating station on the corner of Holland Road and Davigdor Road to look into the doorway to hear the generators whirring. Were they DC??
My second school was Davigdor Infants (Mrs Arrowsmith Headmistress who had a wonderful knack with coloured chalk and specialised in drawing daffodil fields on the blackboard!). For years in our hallway we had a photo he had taken from the pedestrian bridge at the top of Lyndhurst Road of a train leaving the Cliftonville Tunnel with an I3 4-4-2T at its head.
Years later (around 1962/3) my friend David Rowan and I used to play in the Holland Road good yard rearranging the piles of bricks stored there to make various 'playrooms'. We used to stay there until the Lancing Belle arrived from Brighton to be berthed in the long siding between the main line and the goods yard. My impression is that the air was so much clearer and it was so much less noisy back then.

By Tony Hagon (17/04/2007)

I used to live at 98 Lyndhurst Road, above Holland Road Halt and 2 doors from Geoff Hart and his brother (I think we used to play together). Their house had indeed been occupied by a railway official, Mr Richardson (I do not remember him but my older brother knew him well). My brother has his collection of LBSCR postcards which were bought at auction after his death. I don't remember the last steam train run and cannot place it. I well remember every evening watching the Lancing Belle steam past with 3 locos on the front, it would then return with just one pushing it form Brighton and was then stored on the siding by the goods yard. I also remember the firemen who would arrive during the summer to put out the embankment fires. We would let them through our garden where they climbed over on to the railway line. One of the locos was the E4 which is now preserved on the Bluebell Railway along with 2 AIXs. Happy days

By Stuart Cakebread (19/10/2007)

Yes, I remember you Stuart. We did used to play together around the garages at the end of the road. Because we were at the point where the rail line from London to Hove and Brighton to Hove converged at the tip of the triangle of I believe Silverdale Avenue it was called and Lyndhurst Road, we used to get the excitement of two lots of embankment fires either side in the summer! My email is ghart@blueyonder.co.uk if you care to contact me.

By Geoff Hart (09/11/2007)

There's a lovely picture of a train passing through Holland Road Halt which you can find on the James Gray Collection website - regencysociety-jamesgray.com. Go to Volume 11 and look for photo no.144 in the index.

By Trevor Harvey (20/01/2008)

I remember many of the places mentioned in previous comments, but being a girl trains were not of much interest to me. I lived in Waterloo street and Lansdowne Street prior to getting married in 1956. My search for info about Davigdor Secondary School for Girls led me to your site. I wonder if anyone can remember it-it was situated next door to the Davigdor Dairy. I believe it was pulled down to make way for a block of flats. I would be pleased to hear from anyone who attended the school around 1953.

By Marlene Hornby nee Mawer (21/11/2008)

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