IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Talisman Square, LONDON, SE26 6XY

This concrete box is a ventilation shaft for a railway tunnel which passes beneath this point. The housing estate which surrounds this shaft was built over the site of another railway which closed in 1954.

There is little in this picture to give away that it was once a railway station, although if you look very closely, you might just make out part of a tunnel entrance through the trees in the centre of the image. The railway was a branch line from Nunhead to Crystal Palace High Level station. The Crystal Palace itself was destroyed by fire in 1936, but the branch line struggled on, with few passengers, finally closing in 1954. Housing has been built over some parts of the route but nature has reclaimed the site of Upper Sydenham station. There are photos of the station on the 'Disused Stations' website, at http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/u/upper_sydenham/index.shtml

Convenience store for a housing estate. The unusual road name is from a disused rail tunnel that goes underneath here. It served Crystal Palace High Level station before it closed in 1954.

Looking uphill from Fountain Drive.

The London, Chatham & Dover Railway opened the line from Nunhead to Crystal Palace High Level in 1865 to serve the Crystal Palace, which had been rebuilt on Sydenham Hill some ten years previously. Unfortunately the Crystal Palace was in decline as a visitor attraction by the end of the 19th century and this, coupled with the fact that the line passed through an area which was largely undeveloped well into the 20th century, meant that the line had very low passenger usage. It finally closed in 1954. There were two tunnels on the line. This is the south portal of Crescent Wood Tunnel which is the northern one of the two. Upper Sydenham station stood here immediately next to the tunnel entrance, but not a trace of it now remains. It did not open until 1884 but its passenger numbers were always minimal so that even in the 1920s, only some 400 people per day were using the station, and probably most of these were being double-counted as they were making return journeys. More information about Upper Sydenham station can be found at http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/u/upper_sydenham/index.shtml The northern portal of Crescent Wood Tunnel can be seen at http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2635008

This was once a railway line. The branch line to Crystal Palace High Level passed through the tunnel. The line was never very successful and when the Crystal Palace itself was destroyed by fire in 1936, the fate of the branch line was sealed. It struggled on until closure in 1954. The tunnel mouth at the former Upper Sydenham station is one of a number of relics of the railway which can still be seen today, more than half a century since the last train ran. The 'Disused Stations' website http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/u/upper_sydenham/index.shtml has pictures of this site when the railway was still running.

Part of the Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Palace_and_South_London_Junction_Railway See Image for the other end of this tunnel. See Image for the south portal (identical to this one) of the Crescent Wood Tunnel.