The Station opened on 12 May 1840. The original platform for Brighton
was west of the level crossing, and was resited to its present position
in 1881. In 1863 the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway opened a
branch to Littlehampton, which stopped at Portslade. The signal was a
slotted post type, the lamp had coloured glasses, illuminated by gas and
was rotated by cranks
In 1911 the sanitory inspector was horrified to discover that the station
still had its own cesspool in the garden. He ordered it to be filled in
and the drain connected to the Portland Road sewer.
The main shopping area until the 1930's was in North Street, South
Portslade. One of the many butchers in the road had their own slaughter
yard at the back. The animals were driven down Station Road after arriving
by rail at Portslade Station, which is at the top of Station Road,
opposite the 'Railway Inn'
Lynne says that she does not use the trains these
days as she has a car, but she does remember using the trains as a
teenager to go up to the weekly market
by Haywards Heath station. As a child she remembers walking over the railway
bridge and under the tunnel, but does not remember using the trains.
Pam remembers walking over the railway lines on her way to work. 'At
the station there was a hut that workmen used to stop at and get a cup
of tea. It was there for years, it only went about ten years ago. There
is a fruit and veg stall there now. The alleyway under the railway line
was always very seedy and not a very nice place to walk through.
In the
second world war a bomb brought all the glass down from the canopy
over Portslade Station. That was the day that my mother said that we
had to
go and stay with an Aunt in somerset. 'I remember walking down Carlton
Terrace to the station with my doll in my arms, my doll went everywhere
with me. I can remember it so well. I was only five or six. We didn't
stay long in Somerset, we only stayed a few months'. |