Christ's Hospital railway station is near Horsham in West Sussex, England. It is down the line from via . It was opened in 1902 by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway and was intended primarily to serve Christ's Hospital, a large private school which had moved to the area in that year. It now also serves the rural area to the west of Horsham.
Opened originally as Christ's Hospital (West Horsham), the station was until the mid-1960s an important junction with, in addition to the existing link to via , connections to Guildford via and via .
Facilities
The ticket office is now open from the first London bound train (Monday to Friday) which is about 06:30, until 10:40 when the office closes. There is also a 'Quick Ticket' machine allowing passengers to purchase tickets when the office is closed. In April 2009, Southern installed display screens to tell passengers when trains are due.
In August 2012, the station won Southern's award for best small/medium station, being described as a "charming friendly station with a homely atmosphere, well presented flower beds and even a charity bookstall." The flower beds are maintained by the Aldingbourne Community Trust.
Services
All services at Christ's Hospital are operated by Southern using EMUs.
The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is: 1 tph to via Gatwick Airport 1 tph to
On Sundays, there is also an hourly service although southbound trains divide at before travelling to and Bognor Regis .
For a period from the late 1960s until , the station was served by a limited service with the majority of trains passing through without stopping.
The station has short platforms, with passengers needing to be in the front seven carriages of the train in order to alight.
History
Establishment and early hopes
The site of Christ's Hospital station had been previously used by the Aylesbury Dairy Company which had a small wooden platform on the Mid-Sussex Railway for milk to be taken to London. This platform had fallen into disuse upon the bankruptcy of the dairy after it lavished large sums of money on farm buildings. The estate was purchased in 1897 at a knock-down price by Christ's Hospital school, which had been seeking to move from London. It was expected that the school would attract large numbers of visitors which would need to be accommodated by the railway. When the school's foundation stone was laid by the Prince of Wales on 23 October 1897, the whole school came down by train to Horsham where a siding was laid for the occasion.
At the time of the school's decision to relocate, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) had been considering whether to stimulate residential development in the area by opening a station at Stammerham which would be called West Horsham. With the arrival of the school, the LB&SCR believed that even more traffic would be generated and decided to construct a lavish station building at a cost of £30,000 (equivalent to £ in ). The school partly financed the construction of the station which consequently was built to a similar style as the school's own buildings, using red brick from the nearby Southwater brickworks.
Station buildings and facilities
Five through tracks serving seven platform faces were built just beyond the junction near Stammerham Farm, south of and from , where the Cranleigh Line diverged northwards from the Mid-Sussex Railway. Two tracks led to three platform faces which curved away to the west for services on the Cranleigh Line and the Steyning Line; the Down line had platforms on both sides (Platform 5) while the Up track used the outside face of an island platform (Platform 4) which was enclosed by the Up and Down Guildford lines. The two platforms of the island platform were built at a very sharply curving angle to the rest from which they were separated; they were said to represent a southern equivalent of Ambergate railway station. Two tracks served the Mid-Sussex Line: the Up line used the inner face of the island platform (Platform 3) and the Down was the outer face of a second island platform (Platform 2). A bidirectional loop line ran on the inner face of the island platform serving a platform adjacent to the main station building. This third platform (Platform 1) was used mainly at the beginning and end of school terms for the reception and dispatch of pupils' trunks, as well as for holiday specials. The station was ready to become an important junction serving most of West Sussex with trains travelling from London via Horsham having the option of routes to , , Guildford and beyond.