Alresford Station

Alresford Station is at the western end of our railway. When operated by (latterly) British Railways (BR) until 1973, it was a through station on the line from Alton to Winchester.

Today the station is preserved in the Southern Railway (SR) pre-WW2 era of the late 1930s.

Although added to and modified over the years, most of the original buildings are still intact. The West Country Buffet was created by using the station building from Lyme Regis, joined to what had been the station master’s single-storey kitchen and a small building near the signal box which had been the station master’s office. The signal box is the original from 1875 and we even have an elderly bike rack still in its original position.

The other big item brought to the station and put up during the preservation era is the footbridge, which came from Uckfield in Sussex. The goods shed, restored at the beginning of the 21st century with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, has lost its rail connection but the cattle dock siding is still much as it was a hundred years ago. We were lucky that, even in 1973 when it was closed by BR, the station still had gas platform lighting. This was overhauled and still works today.

Next to the picnic area is a water tank, which serves the water “crane”, below it at track level. This is used to deliver water to the tanks of the steam locos. Parts of the tank came from Liss, while the crane was scratch built by our Building Department based on the one on the “up”* platform at Ropley. Also on the picnic area is a replica Strong’s Brewery sign. These were a feature every ten miles or so alongside the main line from Waterloo to Southampton.

All the main signals within the station area are red semaphore (moveable arm) signals and are of the type known as lower quadrant; that is, the arm is lowered from the horizontal to permit the driver to proceed. Small details to look out for are the station signs on the lamp posts known as targets (look for the difference when you get to Ropley with its hotdog shaped totems), posters and the station staffs’ uniforms with SR on their caps.

* In this case “up” refers to the platform for Alton and “down” to that for Winchester.