242 Local History
Findon nearly had a railway station! Original plans were to connect to the Midlands By Valerie Martin Around 1886 the inhabitants of nearby Worthing dreamed of a completely new railway line running through our villages of Findon, Washington and Ashington. This was to meet up at Southwater with the Shoreham to Horsham line (already opened in September 1861). The Victorians then had an adventurous plan for a further track northwards from Horsham to the Midlands (skirting round London). The initial part of this enterprising plan was the Worthing Railway Bill. But when this was forwarded to the House of Lords, it was dismissed because "....of not being in accordance with the requirements of the House". Another unsuccessful attempt was proposed eight months later "for an entirely new line to commence in the Parish of Broadwater and terminate in the Parish of Horsham". Had the above come to fruition, there is a strong likelihood that Findon Village, would have contained its very own railway station..... and Washington Village just could have been transformed into a railway junction. So "hot" were the expectations that a northern link would one day materialise, that the Midland Railway Company actually bought up stretches of land around Worthing. The Worthing Local Board (the forerunner of the Worthing Borough Council), even called in the eminent railway station designers, J. Firbank, to construct a building that would lend itself to the future transformation of a busy junction.
November 4th 1889 was the official Opening Day of the "new, commodious and impressive West Worthing Railway Station" (undated pictured above). There were calls for the railway company to change the name to Heene-on-Sea Station, but this was not to be. There was much pomp and a lavish ceremony when the station opened. Platforms and entrances of the building were lavishly decorated with many flags and luscious potted plants.
The Worthing Gazette newspaper reported in 1889: "It is an open secret that the new Worthing West station's capacity is designed to render it exceedingly useful in the event of a new line being constructed through Findon Valley and Tarring". Colonel William George Margesson lived in Findon and was Worthing's Local Board Member. He lobbied the Railway Directors and put his case for the direct railway route to London via Findon, emphasising that the nearby landowners were "very much in favour". I guess this included himself in this as he was a large landowner in Findon and could see the potential advantages to his pocket! Alas for him it was all to no avail. For a great variety of reasons, the very ambitious plans for putting West Worthing firmly on the map were doomed, and with them the possibility of Findon ever having a railway track of its own. I wonder where exactly the track would have run through the village if the proposals had ever come to anything? Where could the station have stood? Pause for thought. Any likelihood of a direct rail link to London through our village of Findon, was eventually abandoned for good when it was suddenly discovered that the worse gradients and curves meant it would only cut ten minutes off the Worthing to London journey (already possible via Hove).
(c)www.disusedstations.org.uk
Editor’s note: Above is a photo of Fittleworth Railway Station shortly after it opened in 1889, around the same time as Valerie describes the attempts to open one in Findon. It closed to passengers in 1955 and then completely in 1963, and it is now a private house. Bearing in mind the similarity in size to Fittleworth, could Findon’s station have looked like this?
