Blackfriars Bridge railway station was a railway station on the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LC&DR). It was constructed in 1864 and, for six months, was the northern terminus for a line from Herne Hill via Loughborough Junction. It was part of a scheme by the company to extend into the City of London. It ceased to be the terminus when the line was extended across the River Thames to Ludgate Hill where a temporary station in New Bridge Street was opened on 21 December 1864.
In 1885 with the opening of St Pauls station (later renamed Blackfriars) it was no longer deemed necessary for passenger requirements, and remained open solely as a goods station. It remained in this capacity into the 1960s until 1964, outlasting several other stations on the line such as Camberwell which was closed down in 1916. Demolition of the station took place in August 1968. Today offices stand on the site of the goods yards, although a few remnants of the station still remain.
The station was situated on the southern bank of the River Thames, directly opposite what is now Blackfriars station and connected to it via the Blackfriars Railway Bridge. Until the mid-twentieth century trains along the line used the original 1864 bridge built by the LC&DR, but it was not considered strong enough for modern trains, and it was partially dismantled in 1984 and the traffic now uses the newer bridge. Of the older bridge just the abutments remain, leaving an odd appearance in the river.
| Preceding station | Disused railways | Following station | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blackfriars | London, Chatham & Dover Railway |
Borough Road | ||
Read more about Blackfriars Bridge Railway Station: Gallery
Famous quotes containing the words bridge, railway and/or station:
“I was at work that morning. Someone came riding like mad
Over the bridge and up the road—Farmer Rouf’s little lad.
Bareback he rode; he had no hat; he hardly stopped to say,
“Morgan’s men are coming, Frau, they’re galloping on this way.”
—Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840–1894)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“I introduced her to Elena, and in that life-quickening atmosphere of a big railway station where everything is something trembling on the brink of something else, thus to be clutched and cherished, the exchange of a few words was enough to enable two totally dissimilar women to start calling each other by their pet names the very next time they met.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)