Cheam station

Image: © Marathon Taken: 21 Aug 2013

The West Croydon to Epsom railway line was opened in 1847 by the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway and Cheam station also opened then. It did not precipitate the development of the area which remained substantially unchanged for a further 60 years. Prior to the First World War, the rail bed at Cheam station was widened in preparation for the installation of AC overhead electric services, which would have included the building of an additional central platform island. Due to the outbreak of the First World War, the full planned expansion was cancelled and never completed. This is the explanation for the wide space between the tracks which can be seen in this view from the up platform. Fast lines had been laid but were removed in the 1980s when the South Coast services stopped running through Sutton and Epsom. The railway at Cheam was best known as the fictional home in the 1950s and 1960s of Tony Hancock who lived at 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam. Ray Galton, one of the two scriptwriters, when asked why he chose East Cheam as a location said "To us in those days Cheam was the epitome of upper-class suburbia, the Beverley Hills of South London. And so we thought we'd put him there. But obviously he couldn't really be there as otherwise he'd be quite rich, so we put him in East Cheam, which was not quite Cheam. And there again Railway Cuttings, that made a visual picture of a grimy Victorian terrace."

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