IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Station Approach, UXBRIDGE, UB9 5EL

Looking north near Golf Club Station.

A lot of thought went into naming the streets in the small community of Higher Denham on its hillside site. Upper, Middle and Lower roads follow the contours of the valley side, while just round the corner from here the steeper Side Road follows the slope.

Slade Oak Lane passing under Denham Golf Club Railway Station

On what is now known as the Chiltern Line - a line which originated in 1906 as the Great Western and Great Central Joint. The view is in the 'up' direction - towards London Marylebone - at about 4.50pm on a February afternoon. I have a vague childhood memory that this station was once called Denham Links (or perhaps Denham Golf Links Halt) - but can't find any reference to that name on the web. The little 'pagoda' shelter is worth a closer look: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3837283

The station was built in 1912 to provide a halt on the railway line between Gerrards Cross and Denham for golfers using the eponymous golf club. The residential area of Higher Denham grew up on the south side of the station as a result of its arrival. The corrugated iron waiting shelter with its hipped pagoda roof (and the one on the other platform) date from the opening of the station and are rare survivors of a Great Western Railway type once common on country halts. Grade II Listed Building status was afforded to them in 1992 to prevent them being replaced by the bus shelter type structures being built elsewhere on the line. The separate similar structure ticket office at road level was also included in the Grade II listing but was demolished in 2007 following earlier fire damage. The new ticket office was built in the style of the original but painted brown, and the platform waiting rooms have recently been repainted to match. David's Image shows the shelters as painted white in 2005.

You couldn't call this a waiting-room - just four thin walls and a roof, unlit and without a door. But for me it was quite a startling find, as the 'pagoda' roof marks it out as a relic of the old Great Western Railway. This one probably dates from 1912, when the Golf Club station first opened. Pagoda shelters were once a common sight at smaller GWR stations. I found the following picture (taken at Quakers Yard, perhaps in the 1950's) on Alan George's 'Old Merthyr Tydfil' website: http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/Images_Q-T/QuakersYard_LowLevelStation.jpg How far back in its history the GWR adopted the 'pagoda' style isn't clear. I suspect it was very early on - 'chinoiserie' had rather gone out of fashion by the second half of the 19th century.