Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway

Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway
Lordship Lane Station, an intermediate station on the Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway, by Camille Pissarro.
Overview
Type	Commuter rail
Status	Closed
Locale	Greater London
Termini	Nunhead Crystal Palace High Level
Operation
Opened	1865
Closed	1954
Operator(s)	British Railways Southern Region
Technical
No. of tracks	2

Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway

Legend Catford Loop Line To Victoria Nunhead Greenwich Park branch Closed 1 January 1926 Reopened 7 July 1929 (freight), 30 September 1935 (passengers) Catford Loop Line To Chatham Main Line Honor Oak Closed 20 September 1954 Lordship Lane Closed 20 September 1954 Crescent Wood tunnel Upper Sydenham Closed 20 September 1954 Chatham Main Line Paxton tunnel Crystal Palace High Level Closed 20 September 1954 Crystal Palace Low Level Brighton Main Line

The Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway was built by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway from Nunhead to Crystal Palace High Level to serve the Crystal Palace after the building was moved to the area that became known as Crystal Palace from its original site in Hyde Park.

History

A 1908 Railway Clearing House map of lines around the Brighton Main Line in South London, showing surrounding lines, including the Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway.

The branch line had a chequered history, linked to the Crystal Palace's own precarious financial position, with two periods of closure. Wartime economies led to the line closing from 1917 to 1919. After this first closure, trains from the Holborn Viaduct railway station) in the City were not reinstated. However, the branch was electrified, as part of a Southern Railway scheme, on 12 July 1925. After electrification all trains operated to Blackfriars and Holborn Viaduct.

Following the destruction of the Crystal Palace by fire in 1936, the line lost most of its original function of carrying visitors to events in the Palace. Manpower shortages led to a second closure from 1944 to 1946. When services were reintroduced they were very lightly used, and the line finally closed on 20 September 1954. The track was lifted in 1956.

Lordship Lane station has found ongoing fame as the subject of one of Camille Pissarro's finest small-scale pictures.

Although much of the route of the railway has now been lost to residential development, it can be traced in places. Architectural features remain such as the ornamental portal of the Paxton Tunnel just north of the terminus. Part of the route adjacent to the Horniman Museum and Gardens is now a 'Railway Nature Trail', maintained for the museum by the Trust for Urban Ecology (TRUE). The section between the footbridge and northern entrance to the Crescent Wood tunnel is managed by the London Wildlife Trust as the Sydenham Hill Wood nature reserve.

In the early 1990s, a local amenity group, Friends of the Great North Wood, produced a walking leaflet entitled From the Nun's Head to the Screaming Alice describing a route that closely follows the line. ('Screaming Alice' was Cockney rhyming slang for Crystal Palace.) The walk continues from the site of Crystal Palace High Level past the Crystal Palace Museum to the remaining Crystal Palace railway station (formerly Crystal Palace Low Level).

Stations

The line served the following stations:

• Nunhead
• Honor Oak (closed)
• Lordship Lane (closed)
• Upper Sydenham (closed)
• Crystal Palace High Level (closed)

Crystal Palace High Level was in competition with Crystal Palace Low Level station for passenger traffic to the Crystal Palace.

Links

• Pissarro's Lordship Lane station on Courtauld Institute/Art& Architecture site

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