These first grey months of the new year are planning time. At London Road Station, we’ve got two key projects on the horizon.

Planters on the platforms

As part of the award of ‘Best Community Station’ from Southern Railways, we’re getting three new planters to liven up the railway platforms, north and south. The ones we have chosen have trellising (as above) so we can grow climbing ornamentals and achieve some height – I think it’s up to 1m 80. We’ve budgeted for purchase of annuals and perennials to fill these planters and we’ll need to think about how best we maintain stock for future years. As with the Preston Circus Planters, we’ll need to think carefully about position (there are both shadier and sunnier areas), impact (lots of long lasting colour), shape (combinations of tall, bushy and trailing plants) and sustainability (drought – hard to think of now – and wind). We may want to continue our ‘herb’ theme as a foundation, with flowering annuals interspersed. We now need your ideas!

Brighton to Seaford Line 150th Anniversary

Our station is part of the Brighton to Seaford line, which opened in 1864 – 150th anniversary this year, to be celebrated on Saturday 7th June with all manner of events up and down the line.

We got our history of the station poster up on the south platform last year (thanks, Jim) and you can see a copy of it here. We’ve been thinking about different ideas for celebrating on Saturday 7th, including a street party outside the station. Another idea is to extend our history display and prepare some more posters, perhaps focusing on events and changes at the station and in the area over the last 150 years. If you have any ideas for our celebrations, or reminiscences, please do get in touch!

The eight railway staff outside London Road Station, c. 1920s

Outside the south west corner of the railway building, Shaftesbury Place (near what is now our shady garden). Early 1950s

Tramlines being installed at nearby Preston Circus, early 1900s

The badly bombed viaduct (which leads from our station to Brighton mainline), May 1943

Railway workers coming down towards Preston Circus from Brighton engineering works, early1900s

We’ve started collecting a few photos, some of them from the wonderful James Gray collection of historical photos of Brighton.