This article deals with the development of the London suburban railway lines of the London and South Western Railway (LSWR). For the wider view of the LSWR in general, see London and South Western Railway.
The London and Southampton Railway opened its main line progressively from 1838 and a year later changed its name to the London and South Western Railway. It was immediately successful, especially for passenger traffic, and the company quickly extended south-west and west to Gosport, Dorchester and Salisbury. At the same time it energetically and prospectively developed or acquired branch or loop lines in the territory to Windsor, Wokingham, Epsom and Guildford and beyond.
The "suburban area" is taken in this article to include the LSWR lines in what is now Greater London, Surrey and small parts of Berkshire extending to Twickenham, Ascot and Windsor in the north, and Epsom and Leatherhead in the south, as well as suburban development on the main line as far as Weybridge and the Chertsey loop. When the lines were promoted, places served on these lines were recorded such as in the Victoria County History of Surrey in 1910-1912 as rural villages, London suburbs or towns.
The first main line The London and Southampton Railway opened its main line between the two named places progressively from 1838, completing the route on 11 May 1840. The London terminal was at Nine Elms. Passenger traffic was extremely buoyant, and racegoers overwhelmed the capacity of the company's trains in the second week of operation. The company had been frustrated over early intentions to reach Bristol, and harboured the objective of securing territory west of Southampton, but it did not neglect the potential of local traffic closer to London, and early timetables show two types of passenger train service: throughout from London to Southampton, in many cases omitting station calls nearer to London, but also local trains from London to Weybridge.R A Williams, The London & South Western Railway, Volume 1: The Formative Years, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1968, , pages 36 and 40
The London terminal at on the River Thames afforded onward travel to central London by river steamer and taxi carriage. The location was never intended as a permanent London passenger terminal; an extension eastwards was contemplated in 1836, and was decided upon in 1844. Nonetheless contemporaries note that with few rival railways in its sector:
The stations as far as Weybridge were Nine Elms; Wandsworth, about half a mile (nearly 1 km) south-west of the present station, fronting onto Battersea Rise; ; somewhat to the west of Wimbledon Hill Road and of the present station; Kingston; on the east side of King Charles Road, about half a mile (nearly 1 km) east of the present station;Gilks, writing in 1958, puts the first station on the west side of Ewell Road but this seems to be a mistake; he appears to justify this from the location of the (former) Railway Tavern, which was in the angle of Ewell Road and Lamberts Road, and from South Terrace, which he says was "probably the approach road for the old station and the circular stone steps which now begin the path from there to the present station contrast strongly with the rest of the path and may well mark the original entrance" Ditton Marsh; renamed Esher & Hampton Court in 1840; now ; Walton; renamed Walton and Hersham in 1849; now ; .
The London and Southampton Railway changed its name to the London and South Western Railway on 4 June 1839.Williams, volume 1, page 122
Kingston-upon-Railway The town of Kingston upon Thames, at the time known simply as Kingston, was steadily growing and commercially active before the arrival of the railway.Samuel Lewis, editor and publisher, A Topographical Dictionary of England, London, 1848, pages 680 to 683, at 'Kingston upon Thames' A Topographical Dictionary of England. Ed. and Pub. Samuel Lewis (publisher) When the main line was built, it passed south of the town, and a station was provided in the deep cutting there. The station was called "Kingston", but the existence of the station, and the convenience of travelling to London from it, prompted many streets to be laid out close to the station, and for a time the settlement was known as Kingston-upon-Railway. The 1841 Year Book of Facts says
Railway town—Upon the South-western line a new town, called Kingston-upon-Railway, is fast rising, 800 houses being built or in progress.The Year-Book of Facts in Science and Art, Tilt and Bogue, London, 1841
The station name was later, on 1 September 1862, changed from Kingston to Surbiton.The station never had the "on-railway" suffix. The authority on this is Quick; his work is continuously peer-reviewed and updated.M E Quick, Railway Passenger Stations in England, Wales and Scotland: A Chronology, version 5.04, September 2022, Railway and Canal Historical Society, electronic download, page 435
Early extensions, to 1850 Richmond
Early in the life of the new railway, Richmond was the heart of a lucrative residential area for developers generating significant travel to and from London: 98 omnibuses made the journey each way daily in 1844. Local promoters developed a scheme for a railway from Richmond to join the LSWR at Wandsworth and to extend the LSWR line north-eastward from near Nine Elms to Hungerford and Waterloo Bridges. Responsibility for the eastward extension passed to the LSWR, but the Richmond (Surrey) Railway Act 1845 (8 & 9 Vict. c. cxxi) received royal assent on 21 July 1845. Three LSWR directors were on the board of the new company raising its nominal capital of £260,000 ().E F Carter, An Historical Geography of the Railways of the British Isles, Cassell, London, 1959
A few road bridges were built, the viaduct/bridge at Wandsworth over the Wandle (and the Surrey Iron Railway) and a deep cutting through about of Putney but via a flattish route, rural at the time, minimal other bridges, embankments or cuttings. Construction was swift and the line opened on 27 July 1846.Sam Fay, A Royal Road, 1973 reprint of 1882 original, E P Publishing, Wakefield,
This line runs due east: through Mortlake, Barnes, Putney and Wandsworth with stations for those parishes, the last close to the present Wandsworth Town station — about a mile from the LSWR Wandsworth station just within the Battersea boundaries, which was renamed Clapham Common at the same time. The line joined at Falcon Bridge, by today's Falcon Road, and ran alongside it, forming four tracks to Nine Elms.Ordnance Survey Town Plan of London, 1:5280, dated 1850 The Richmond terminus was slightly south, by Drummond Place.Ordnance Survey Town Plan of Richmond, 1:1056, dated 1867
In early years 17 trains each way between Richmond and Nine Elms.Williams, chapter 6 The Richmond company sought to sell their line to LSWR and after some prevarication a merger was agreed, with a share exchange valuing Richmond shares at a premium, and with a Richmond director appointed to the LSWR board when a vacancy arose. The merger took effect on 31 December 1846.
Waterloo The Nine Elms station was never intended to be a permanent London terminal so in 1845 the LSWR obtained powers to extend to a more central site, Waterloo Bridge by that road bridge (changed to today's Waterloo in 1886). A second act of Parliament, the London and South Western Railway (Widening and York Road Station Enlargement) Act 1847 (10 & 11 Vict. c. lxxxviii) authorised the extending of two further tracks, reflecting the separate Richmond Railway's completion in 1846.
The Nine Elms to Waterloo Viaduct ran through the residential Battersea and Lambeth ancient parishes and the construction displaced about 700 houses. Starting from an embankment near Nine Elms, this line was to assist with gradients and built on viaduct as was Waterloo station itself. The line, terminus and Vauxhall new stations opened on 11 July 1848. Waterloo Bridge station occupied ten acres, with six tracks serving four platformsRoughly where platforms 9 to 12 are at present. The terminus was a cheap, temporary structure.John C Gillham, The Waterloo & City Railway, The Oakwood Press, Usk, 2001, H P White, London Railway History, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1963 revised 1971,
Waterloo was aligned to enable eastward extension, and on 26 August 1846 the LSWR obtained the London and South-western Railway Company's London Bridge Extension Act 1846 (9 & 10 Vict. c. cccxci) permitting an extension to Borough High Street to face the London Bridge station of the South Eastern Railway (SER). This would have given public access to the City of London without building a railway bridge over the Thames. Some land was bought but in the slump following the railway mania the company reflected on the huge cost of constructing an inner-urban line, and allowed the powers to lapse.
On to Windsor, and a Hounslow loop This period in 1846 was the time of the railway mania, when all manner of railway schemes were being promoted with the promise, often unfulfilled, of making subscribers rich. The LSWR was not to be left behind, and now was pressing the Richmond line westwards, but was beset with multiple independent schemes competing for the same territory. These included, an 1846 'Windsor, Slough and Staines Atmospheric Railway' company which would probably have used broad gauge. However it was induced by the 'Richmond and Staines Junction Railway' company to form a joint venture, the Windsor, Staines and South Western Railway (WS&SWR), rebuffing the overtures of an atmospheric railway. The new company was friendly to the LSWR and had Joseph Locke as its engineer.
The company obtained the Windsor, Staines, and South-western Railway Act (No. 1) 1847 (10 & 11 Vict. c. lviii) on 25 June 1847. With capital of £500,000 it built the line from a junction with the Richmond railway to a terminus at an uninhabited location known as 'Black Potts' on the Thames 1,100 yards (1 km) north-west of Datchet. The exact route into Windsor, the intended terminus, was still under negotiation with the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. From Richmond the line ran a little north of the earlier terminus, which was unsuitable for conversion to a through station, crossing the Thames, and running through Twickenham and Staines. The act of Parliament also authorised a new loop line from Barnes, crossing the Thames and running through Brentford and Isleworth to Hounslow, and rejoining the Windsor line on the approach to Feltham.
The Great Western Railway (GWR) sought its own Windsor railway, for the great prestige of serving Queen Victoria, and had secured approval from the commissioners over their proposed approach. For a time it appeared that the GWR would succeed and the WS&SWR, having paid the £60,000, would be refused. However at last both companies obtained approval to come to Windsor — on 26 June 1849 the second act of Parliament benefitting the WS&SWR, the South-western Windsor Extension Act 1849 (12 & 13 Vict. c. xxxiv), permitted the Windsor and Eton Riverside station, not quite so convenient for Windsor as preferred. Very convenient to Eton, stringent conditions were imposed to prevent scholars at Eton College from immoral or unlawful use.
Railway mania ended leaving few speculative investors, but the line from Richmond to Datchet was opened to the public on 22 August 1848. The extension to Windsor was delayed when the piers of the Thames bridge at Black Potts settled, and the line was opened belatedly on 1 December 1849, Eight weeks after the GWR had reached its own Windsor station. Even then it was to a cramped temporary station; opening of the lavish permanent station, with royal waiting room and cavalry entrance, was seventeen months later, on 1 May 1851.
Meanwhile, the Hounslow loop had been progressing more slowly, reaching (Smallberry Green), Isleworth east of its successor by 22 August 1849 and completed to the junction on the heath in Feltham parish on 1 February 1850.