Ropley is a fairly large, sprawling parish which has two main parts and at least one other.
South of the station is Ropley Dean which is on the A31. At one time this part of the A31 was an important part of a route from south west London to the New Forest and further. It had two pubs with restaurants but these have both now closed although one has reopened just as a restaurant.
To the south east of this part of the village lies the main part of Ropley, a mile from the station which sits at the top of a steep lane. So, not very convenient for the people whose main form of transport would have been a bicycle, or for farmers wanting to move bulky produce away from the village.
The last part is North Street which today is a collection of farms straddling the A31. However, this at one time also had a pub on the A31 known as The Shant, a name derived from the area’s use as a shanty town during construction of the railway.
As with many of the bigger heritage railways we have had to develop one of the station sites into a major engineering base. Ropley was the only one of our four stations which was able to provide space, although compared to many other railways it is a small site.
The station area has been continually developed over the nearly 50 years since the preservationists took over the railway. It is now being further developed to make it even more important. There will be more to see and do around the station: catering is being expanded, there will be more for children and families and viewing areas over the works are being improved.
This means that as a station Ropley will become more interesting. It has for some years looked a bit like a rural junction station and could have been if a plan to link it with Bishops Waltham had happened. Trains at times arrive and depart from both platforms and many trains start and terminate from here with some of the timetables now in place.
