Midhurst Railways

Early proposals In the 1850s it was felt urgently necessary to connect Portsmouth with London, and a considerable number of schemes were put forward. One would have aligned such a route from Godalming through Midhurst and Chichester, and from there along the coast, but in fact other, more roundabout routes were preferred. Although never built, the line had an enduring significance as it marked the boundary between the agreed territory of the LBSCR and the LSWR: the two companies agreed not to encroach on the other's area of influence. The tract of land south-west of Horsham was largely agricultural, with no large settlements. The population of Petworth in 1851 was 2,439 and Midhurst had 1,481 inhabitants. Although never on a main line Midhurst attracted the attention of railway builders, and three railway routes approached the town. They connected into the growing railway network of southern England. The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway had its West Coast line running from Brighton to Chichester, actually opened by the Brighton and Chichester Railway, in 1846. This was extended to Portsmouth in 1847. To the north-west ran the Portsmouth Direct line, operated by the London and South Western Railway. To the north lay Horsham station, terminus of a branch from Three Bridges on the London to Brighton main line of the LBSCR. The Petersfield Railway The Mid-Sussex and Midhurst Junction Railway had considered extending from Midhurst to Petersfield, on the Portsmouth line, controlled by the London and South Western Railway, but were deterred from doing so by the territorial exclusivity agreement between the LBSCR and the LSWR, Midhurst being considered to be the boundary. The connection was seen to be desirable, so a company was projected to make the line: it was to be called the Petersfield Railway, and its estimated cost was £90,000. A bill was presented to Parliament for the Petersfield Railway; it would run from a junction with the Mid-Sussex and Midhurst Railway at Midhurst to a junction with the Portsmouth line immediately north of Petersfield station. During the consideration of the bill in Parliament, there was a significant difference of views between, the Petersfield Railway and the MS&MR, and the Mid-Sussex company managed to have a clause inserted into the bill to specifically preclude a junction with its line. On that basis the Petersfield Railway got its authorising act of Parliament, the '''''' (23 & 24 Vict. c. clxxiii) on 23 July 1860. It was independent of the LSWR, and the line was to be miles in length. Construction proceeded and Col. Yolland of the Board of Trade inspected the line on 27 May 1864. However he was dissatisfied with some signal locations, and he required a full double junction at Petersfield. This was attended to, and he gave his consent for opening on 18 August 1864. The line opened to the public on 1 September 1864. It was the first railway at Midhurst. The tract of land south-west of Horsham was largely agricultural, with no large settlements. The population of Petworth in 1851 was 2,439 and Midhurst had 1,481 inhabitants. The line ran through Billingshurst and Pulborough. From there on to Petworth, the line was designed to remain on the south of the River Rother to minimise river crossings, with the result that the Petworth station was about miles from the settlement itself, at a place known as Coultershaw Mill, a distance of miles from Horsham. The LBSCR's Horsham station had been built as a terminus, and it was unsuitable for a continuation to Petworth, so a new and larger passenger station was built nearby by the LBSCR. Already at this stage, the idea of extending the line to Littlehampton was taking shape; this would run from a junction south of Pulborough, and the section from Horsham to that point was already referred to as the main line, and from there to Petworth as "the Coultershaw branch". The Mid-Sussex Railway was leased by the LBSCR and operated by it, and the company was taken over by the LBSCR by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (Additional Powers) Act 1864 (27 & 28 Vict. c. cccxiv) of 29 July 1864. The Mid-Sussex and Midhurst Railway Long before the Mid-Sussex Railway was completed, an extension from Petworth to Midhurst was decided upon, and another nominally independent company was formed to construct it. This was the Mid-Sussex and Midhurst Railway, which was authorised to construct a line from Petworth to Midhurst by the '''''' (22 & 23 Vict. c. cxxv) of 13 August 1859. Authorised share capital was £70,000 for a line of miles. The Mid-Sussex and Midhurst Junction company had difficulty in raising share capital from the outset, and in the '''''' (23 & 24 Vict. c. clxxii) the was authorised to take £30,000 in shares. The company was authorised to lease its line to the by the '''''' (25 & 26 Vict. c. ccx) of 7 August 1862, long before the line opened on 15 October 1866 and was acquired by the by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (Capital and Powers) Act 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c. cclxxxi) of 30 July 1866 but this did not take effect until June 1874. At Midhurst the act of Parliament authorising the Petersfield Railway, the Petersfield Railway Act 1860 (23 & 24 Vict. c. clxxiii) had prohibited it from extending to join the Mid-Sussex and Midhurst Junction railway, so that there were now two stations in the town, about a quarter mile apart. Connecting the Midhurst stations The LSWR (former Petersfield Railway) and the LBSCR (former Mid-Sussex and Midhurst Junction Railway) had two separate stations in Midhurst, not far apart. Colonel Yolland had commented adversely on the arrangement during his inspection of the Petersfield line on 18 August 1864. A goods-only connecting line, 11 chains in length, was made and opened on 17 December 1866. ==The Chichester and Midhurst Railway==

At the end of the 1850s a number of attempts were made to gain support for a Midhurst connection from Chichester, but these were unsuccessful. However in 1863 three separate, competing bills for a Chichester and Midhurst Railway were promoted, and went to Parliament for authorisation in the 1864 session. One of them was proposed by Lord Henry Gordon Lennox and William Townley Mitford, the members of Parliament for Chichester and Midhurst respectively. This was the scheme that was passed, incorporated by the '''''' (27 & 28 Vict. c. lxxv) of 23 June 1864; capital was £190,000 and the length of the line was miles. It was to run from a junction a mile west of Chichester and run to the Petersfield Railway's station at Midhurst, together with a south-to-west spur there forming a triangular junction. There was required to be a station at Lavant at which all trains had to stop. On 22 April 1865 the first sod had been cut by Lord Henry Lennox. Usually this activity was purely ceremonial, but The LBSCR and the Chichester and Midhurst Railway boards had been negotiating for the eventual takeover of the smaller company, but the Haslemere extension now threatened infringement of the territorial exclusivity agreement, and the LBSCR broke off the acquisition negotiation. This immediately lay the LBSCR open to the possibility of a hostile competitor acquiring the Chichester and Midhurst line. The South Eastern Railway stepped forward, and was considering a new line from Dorking (in its line from Guildford to Reigate) to Midhurst; if it acquired the Midhurst line as well, it would have an instant opening into LBSCR territory. It further expressed an interest in extending from Chichester to Hayling Island. In November 1865 the LBSCR hastily arranged to acquire the Midhurst company itself, for £95,000. The value was transferred by LBSCR directors personally acquiring Midhurst shares, and it was regularised by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (Capital and Powers) Act 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c. cclxxxi). The construction of the original Chichester to Midhurst line was suspended, and all but abandoned, until in 1872 a group of local speculators proposed taking over the construction. Their obvious intention was to sell the works on to the highest bidder, but they did not press the scheme forward until 1875 when they presented a parliamentary bill. The LBSCR objected, and in Parliament the company managed to take control of the proposals. The '''''' (39 & 40 Vict. c. cix) of 13 July 1876 was passed, giving the LBSCR control of the now defunct Chichester and Midhurst company's assets. The route was amended slightly in 1877. The junction at Midhurst was to be altered so that LBSCR trains from Chichester could continue without reversal to Pulborough; This involved moving the Midhurst station eastwards. A late enhancement to the line was made when the LBSCR arranged to provide a separate independent track from the point of junction near Fishbourne into Chichester station to avoid interruption to main line trains. Three tunnels were required on the line and the very difficult geology made them expensive. The completed line was calculated to have cost over £291,000. Col. Yolland of the Board of Trade visited the line on 24 June 1881 but was not satisfied that the works were complete and safe. Yolland revisited in July and approved the line, and it opened to the public on 11 July 1881. Combination of the stations at Midhurst In 1866 a siding connection had been made between the LSWR station at Midhurst and the MS&MJR station there. It was intended purely for occasional wagon transfer, and was expected to be worked by horse traction. Accordingly a bridge over Bepton Road was made of light construction, inadequate to carry locomotives. When Col. Yolland inspected the Chichester line on 10 July 1881 he commented adversely on the fact that passengers making an interconnection at Midhurst had to walk in the open between the two stations, and he recommended that the LSWR be brought into the new LBSCR station without delay. This issue continued to be a sore for some time, and eventually West Sussex County Council pursued the matter to the Railway and Canal Commissioners in October 1892. The cost to make a full connection was estimated at £1,600 and neither the LSWR nor the LBSCR felt that this would be money well spent, in view of the limited volume of through passenger business. The LSWR indeed asserted that Midhurst was the "leanest part of their leanest district". Moreover the timetable of passenger trains was determined by connections out of main line trains at Petersfield and Pulborough respectively, and arranging close connectional times would disrupt that. The commissioners conceded the railway position, and made no direction on the matter. Royal visits ) on 13 June 1906 Goodwood races attracted royal visitors, and the royal train was frequently used to bring the Prince of Wales, among others. In addition he often visited West Dean House, near Singleton station, where he had close friends. ==Passenger train services==

The Petersfield line operated five trains each way daily (not Sunday) at first, and this gradually increased to eleven by 1913. After the First World War two of the services worked through to Portsmouth. The first Mid-Sussex Railway service (Horsham to Petworth) was five trains daily (not Sundays), increasing to eight when the line through to Midhurst was opened. This service remained broadly unchanged, but in 1864 a slip coach was dropped at Pulborough from the 16:05 London Bridge to Portsmouth train, continuing to Midhurst, arriving at 17:28. The Chichester to Midhurst line had six trains daily (not Sundays); there was an 08:15 from Chichester to London via Midhurst and Pulborough, until March 1929. In the period 1937 and 1938 both the former LSWR and former LBSCR routes from London to Portsmouth were electrified, using a new regular-interval timetable pattern. The Midhurst branch trains had to fit in to the connectional times, and trains running through Midhurst usually had to wait for some time there to co-ordinate. ==Southern Railway, and then decline==

Following the Railways Act 1921 most of the railways of Great Britain were “grouped” into one or other of four new large companies; the arrangement took nominal effect on the first day of 1923. Both the LSWR and the LBSCR were transferred into the Southern Railway, and the competition between those two companies was officially at an end. The long drawn-out problem of the separate stations at Midhurst was finally resolved, when the Southern Railway strengthened the connecting line between the two stations, closing the former Petersfield Railway station; now from 17 July 1925 all trains used the 1881 LBSCR station. A limited goods service continued but during the Second World War the line took up a new duty. Singleton and Cocking tunnels were used for storing wagons containing naval ammunition the period of stabling lasted from 1940 until 1944. After the war a heavy seasonal traffic in sugar beet developed, and for the time being general goods traffic was buoyant. A pick-up goods ran over the line from Chichester to Horsham, returning on the Arundel line. On the morning of 19 November 1951 the morning goods train from Chichester ran into a washout, where a culvert had been washed away. The locomotive dropped into the stream below. The locomotive was eventually recovered but it was decided that it was uneconomic to reinstate the line, which was therefore permanently severed at this point, some distance south of Midhurst. For the time being, Lavant, Singleton and Cocking goods stations were served from Chichester as a dead-end branch. Singleton and Cocking goods stations were closed on 28 August 1957. The traffic continued until 1992, when the PGA wagons were stored out of use at Chichester. Hardham Junction to Midhurst The line was closed in stages, first to passenger trains from 7 February 1955, then goods services were withdrawn from Selham and Fittleworth Stations May 1963. The Midhurst to Petworth section was closed completely on 18 October 1964; the Petworth to Hardham section continued until 20 May 1966. Petersfield to Midhurst The Petersfield service carried very little traffic in the twentieth century, and British Railways closed it completely from 7 February 1955. ==Centurion Way Railway Path==

Centurion Way Railway Path is a cycling, horse-riding and walking pathway on part of the Midhurst to Chichester railway section, from Chichester to Singleton. ==Petworth hotel==

The former railway station at Petworth had been converted and operates as a bed and breakfast and afternoon tea business. Pullman carriages have been installed and are used as bedrooms. ==Topography==

Gradients The Chichester line climbed continuously, mostly at 1 in 76, from Fishbourne Crossing to Singleton tunnel, then descended at about the same gradient to a point just short of Midhurst. Locations • Petersfield; on Portsmouth Direct line; opened 1 January 1859; still open; • Rogate; opened 1 September 1864; closed 7 February 1955; • Elsted; opened 1 September 1864; closed 7 February 1955; • Midhurst LSWR; opened 1 September 1864; closed 12 July 1925; • Midhurst LBSCR second station; below. • Fishbourne Crossing; • Lavant; opened 11 July 1881; closed 7 July 1935; used for a Goodwood Race Special Train 26 July 1954; • West Dean Tunnel; 445 yards; • Singleton; opened 11 July 1881; closed 7 July 1935; • Singleton Tunnel; 741 yards; • Cocking Tunnel; 738 yards; • Cocking; opened 11 July 1881; closed 7 July 1935. • Midhurst LBSCR second station; below. • Midhurst LBSCR first station; opened 15 October 1866; closed 11 July 1881; • Midhurst LBSCR second station; opened 11 July 1881; closed 7 February 1955; • Midhurst Tunnel; 276 yards; • Selham; opened 1 July 1872; closed 7 February 1955; • Petworth; opened 10 October 1859; closed 7 February 1955; • Fittleworth; opened 2 September 1889; closed 7 February 1955; • Hardham Junction. ==Locomotives used on the lines==

On the London Brighton and South Coast Railway lines the Midhurst to Pulborough services were worked by various engines designed by J. C. Craven, until the 1880s when William Stroudley's famous 'Terriers' took over. These were in turn replaced by D1 tanks, the last survivor of which was used on the line during its last days. These were replaced by D3 tanks, then ex LSWR M7s which hauled the last passenger trains in 1955. A succession of ex LBSCR designs were used on freight trains, including C2xs and E4s, together with occasional turns with Southern Railway tender engines Q & Q1 as well. The lines did see some diesel locomotives in the last freight days, mostly class 08 shunters, although Class 33 main line diesels ran to Midhurst in that station's last year. Also Class 73 electro-diesels were used on gravel workings on the shortened spur of the branch until 1991. ==Notes==