Spa Road, Bermondsey

I've posted before about Deptford Station, one end of the first suburban passenger railway, so a post about the other end of the line is rather overdue. Spa Road Station, Bermondsey is now closed, but a few traces remain.

They are not in fact traces of the original station, as it was resited when the viaduct above was widened to accommodate more lines. (By the turn of the century, there were twelve.) However, as the railway got busier, the station did not. After its ten months of glory as the northern terminus, the more usefully-located London Bridge Station opened. Passenger numbers dropped off, despite rebuilding of the wooden original and even a minor relocation. Finally, the station closed during the First World War, never to reopen.

The initials SE&CR stand for South East & Chatham Railway. Its scope, so much larger than that of the London & Greenwich Railway which first used the station, tells its own story of rail expansion. If you cannot take the time to visit these remnants in the backstreets of Bermondsey, however, other phantoms haunt the rails themselves. Between Deptford/New Cross and London Bridge, at the point signposted as Spa Road Junction, some of the old platforms remain stranded between the lines.