Chingford station on a very wet day

Image: © Marathon Taken: 29 Jan 2014

Passenger trains were extended from Shernhall Street in Walthamstow to serve the Chingford terminus in Bull Lane (now King's Road) over a single track which opened on 17th November 1873. As it was intended to extend this branch to High Beech, there was just a temporary wooden structure at Chingford and locomotives were watered from an old farm pond. With the opening of the extension, the platform at Shernhall Street was closed and replaced by a permanent station at Wood Street. The permanent terminus at Chingford on the very edge of Epping Forest was opened on 2nd September 1878 at some distance north of the original. It possessed a large station house on the down side. It had been intended to extend the line via Sewardstone to High Beech but this coincided with Queen Victoria travelling in the royal train on the Chingford line on 6th May 1883 to declare Epping Forest open to the public. In the excitement, opposition to the desecration of the Forest by a railway killed the extension off once and for all. The platforms at Chingford were extended in the 1920s and four new carriage sidings provided. Chingford was a popular resort for North Londoners at summer weekends and on Bank Holidays and as many as 100,000 people would use the station on a Bank Holiday until just after the First World War. Chingford station has the two platforms seen here as well as extensive carriage sidings. This view looks in the direction of Walthamstow Central and Liverpool Street. The weather was cold and wet all day and was quite as miserable as it looks.

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