History
The station was built in 1839 by the London and South Western Railway (then the London and Southampton Railway). It became a temporary terminus for the Winchester to Southampton section. It was opened on 10 June 1839. On the same day, another station was opened at Basingstoke, which was a temporary terminus of the London to Basingstoke section.
The following year, a line was built joining Winchester and Basingstoke and the line was complete. This line was the trickiest to construct and had four tunnels and a single station called (rather optimistically given Andover lay 13 miles west) Andover Road (now Micheldever). Winchester became a through station on 30 March 1840.
As the line bypassed Kingston upon Thames, Winchester was the only major settlement between London and Southampton. Since the original Southampton line ran via the then small market town of Basingstoke (where lines to the west would be built), it was not very direct. Another line was constructed to run via Guildford, Farnham and Alton, which joined the main line north of Winchester. The present day line runs via Aldershot instead of Guildford and the line finishes at Alton. A section from Alton to Alresford is preserved as the Watercress Line but the final gap from Alresford to Winchester is unlikely ever to be reinstated due to housing having been built on the trackbed.
Later, the Great Western Railway built the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway. This passed at a separate station on the eastern side of Winchester called Winchester (Chesil). In 1949, it was renamed Winchester Chesil, whilst Winchester's main station was renamed Winchester City. This did not last long: In 1966 Chesil closed and the following year, City station was changed back to simply 'Winchester'.
Renovations in summer 2004 gave the western side a refurbished entrance and second ticket office; albeit with shorter opening hours than that on the eastern side.
In summer 2009, both platforms received ticket barriers with CCTV, with the entrance to platform 2 from the forecourt reorganised as part of South West Trains' plan to fit or refit ticket barriers on the busiest stations on the network.
Read more about this topic: Winchester Railway Station
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