Hassocks railway station is on the

Brighton Main Line The Brighton Main Line (also known as the South Central Main Line) is a major railway line in the United Kingdom that links Brighton, on the south coast of England, with central London. In London the line has two branches, out of and station ...

in England, serving the village of

Hassocks Hassocks is a large village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. Its name is believed to derive from the tufts of grass found in the surrounding fields. Located approximately north of Brighton, with a populatio ...

, West Sussex. It is down the line from via and is situated between and . It is managed by

Southern Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, M ...

. Trains calling at Hassocks are operated by Southern and

Thameslink Thameslink is a 24-hour main-line route in the British railway system, running from , , , and via central London to Sutton, , , Rainham, , , , and . The network opened as a through service in 1988, with severe overcrowding by 1998, carrying m ...

History

The station was named "Hassocks Gate" upon its opening on 21 September 1841 by the

London and Brighton Railway The London and Brighton Railway (L&BR) was a railway company in England which was incorporated in 1837 and survived until 1846. Its railway ran from a junction with the London and Croydon Railway (L&CR) at Norwood – which gives it access fro ...

, which became the

London Brighton and South Coast Railway The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR; known also as the Brighton line, the Brighton Railway or the Brighton) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1922. Its territory formed a rough triangle, with London at its ...

in 1846. It was one of the few intermediate stations on the line with four tracks, to allow express trains to overtake those stopping at the station. However, the number of tracks was later reduced to two, although the additional width is still apparent from the siting of the station buildings. The original 1841 station building was designed by

David Mocatta David Alfred Mocatta (1806–1882) was a British architect and a member of the Anglo-Jewish Mocatta family. Early career David Alfred Mocatta was born to a Sephardic Jewish family in 1806, the son of the licensed bullion broker Moses Mocatta ...

, the architect of the railway, in a simple cottage style, but using the same modular system that he applied to other stations on the line. For many years Hassocks Gate station was used by excursion trains for passengers visiting the nearby

South Downs The South Downs are a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the Eastbourne Downland Estate, East Sussex, in the east. ...

and suffered as a result as it became a meeting place for prostitutes. It stands almost at the summit of the line's climb from London before passing through

Clayton Tunnel Clayton Tunnel is a railway tunnel located near the villages of Clayton and Pyecombe in West Sussex, between Hassocks and Preston Park railway stations on the Brighton Main Line. This tunnel is notable for its turreted and castellated north p ...

, a short distance south of the station. This was the site of the

Clayton Tunnel rail crash The Clayton Tunnel rail crash occurred on Sunday 25 August 1861, from Brighton on the south coast of England. At the time it was the worst accident on the British railway system. A train ran into the back of another inside the tunnel, killing 2 ...

in 1861, resulting in 23 deaths and 176 injuries. Between December 1880 and August 1881 a new station building was constructed by James Longley & Co of

Crawley Crawley () is a large town and borough in West Sussex, England. It is south of London, north of Brighton and Hove, and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Crawley covers an area of and had a population of 106,597 at the time of th ...

to the designs of

Thomas Myres Thomas Harrison Myres FRIBA (1842 – 3 December 1926) was an English railway architect who designed stations and ancillary buildings for the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway lines that were opened between 1880 and 1883, including several o ...

as the prototype for those later built in the same style on the Bluebell and

Cuckoo line The Cuckoo Line is an informal name for the now defunct railway service which linked Polegate and Eridge in East Sussex, England, from 1880 to 1968. It was nicknamed the Cuckoo Line by drivers, from a tradition observed at the annual fair at ...

with a half-timbered upper storey, decorative brick eaves, stained glass windows and charming porches. The booking office was covered by a lantern-shaped roof and the platforms by wooden canopies on iron columns. The station was demolished in 1973 by

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

and replaced with a CLASP structure which was described as "truly awful". Hassocks Station opening day 050713

In 2006 the local community announced that it was hoping to raise £2.5m to rebuild the station to the previous design. Although these plans fell through, in 2008

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...

announced that it would be carrying out an 18-month feasibility study to identify possible improvements to the existing building in order to facilitate access by the disabled and elderly. Limited modifications were made to the station in 2011 with the addition of ticket gate lines on both platforms and some refurbishment of the shelters. In January 2011 it was announced by Network Rail that £1.25 million would be used to rebuild the station under the Department for Transport's National Station Improvement Programme and that a further £1.6 million, from the Access for All scheme, used to install step-free access. Work began on building the new station in November 2012 and the new ticket office opened for the first time on 14 June 2013. At this point there was still work to be completed including the installation of lifts to improve access to the subway however the opening of the new station officially took place on Friday 5 July 2013, conducted by the MD of Southern and Catherine Cassidy. Work was completed by December 2013. The station features in

Sabine Baring-Gould Sabine Baring-Gould ( ; 28 January 1834 – 2 January 1924) of Lew Trenchard in Devon, England, was an Anglican priest, hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist, folk song collector and eclectic scholar. His bibliography consists of more than 1,240 ...

's mid-Victorian ghost story ''The 9.30 Up-train''. Woodside level crossing, to the north of the station, was closed in 2021 due to safety concerns. In June 2022, an underpass was opened which replaced the level crossing.

Services

Off-peak, services at Hassocks are operated by

and

using and

EMUs Emus may refer to: * Emu The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the g ...

. The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is: * 2 tph to via * 2 tph to * 2 tph to * 2 tph to via During the peak hours and on Saturdays, the service between London Victoria and Littlehampton is increased to 2 tph. There are also a number of peak hour Thameslink services to and Littlehampton. In addition, the station is served by a number of peak hour

Gatwick Express Gatwick Express is a high-frequency rail passenger service between , Gatwick Airport, and in South East England. It is the brand name used by the Govia Thameslink Railway train operating company on the Gatwick Express route of the Thameslink, ...

services which usually pass through Hassocks. These services run non-stop from to London Victoria and are operated using EMUs.

References

External links

{{TSGN and SE Stations, CityFlyer=y, Brighton Express=y, Gatwick Express=y, Mainline West=y, SE None=y Mid Sussex District Railway stations in West Sussex DfT Category C2 stations Former London, Brighton and South Coast Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1841 Railway stations served by Govia Thameslink Railway Thomas Myres buildings David Mocatta railway stations