Clapham Junction Railway Station - History

History

Before the railway came the area was rural and specialised in growing lavender; Lavender Hill is to the east of the station. The coach road from London to Guildford ran slightly south of the future station site, past The Falcon public house at the crossroads in the valley between St. John's Hill and Lavender Hill.

On 21 May 1838 the London and Southampton Railway, which became the London and South Western Railway (L&SWR) that day, opened its line from Nine Elms as far as Woking. That was the first railway through the area but it had no station at the present site.

The second line, initially from Nine Elms to Richmond, opened on 27 July 1846. Nine Elms was replaced in 1848 as the terminus by Waterloo Bridge station, now Waterloo. The line to Victoria opened by 1860. Clapham Junction station opened on 2 March 1863, a joint venture of the L&SWR, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) and the West London Extension Railway (WLER) as an interchange station for their lines.

When the station was built Battersea was regarded as a poor district while Clapham, a mile east, was more fashionable. The railway companies, to attract a middle and upper class clientele, adopted the grander of the two names, leading to a long-lasting misunderstanding that the station is in Clapham. A local action group, Love Battersea, was belatedly formed in 2005 to reduce the misapprehension.

Additional station buildings were erected in 1874 and 1876.

The station brought development to the surrounding area whose population rose from 6,000 in 1840 to 168,000 by 1910.