Victoria - the Chatham Station

Unregarded by most people passing through and less grandiose than the Brighton Station with its hotel, the Chatham Station at Victoria is something of a minor masterpiece.

The current building, opened on 16 June 1906 for the London Chatham and Dover Railway (LC&DR), was designed by A. W. Blomfield, architect to SECR, and its fine frontage is built of Portland stone.

The LC&DR and GWR jointly leased the 'Chatham' portion of Victoria station.
and opened their own station on 25 August 1862, with a wooden-fronted building with the entrance on Wilton Road. The station had eight platforms, five of which were of mixed-gauge and shared by trains of the GWR which ran broad-gauge services to Victoria from Windsor via Southall

In 1899 the LC&DR entered a working union with its mortal rival the South Eastern (SER), to form the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SECR).

The GWR ceased to use Victoria in 1915, due to World War I.

The two stations at Victoria came under single ownership in 1923 with the formation of the Southern Railway (SR) on Grouping. The following year the platforms were renumbered in a single sequence and openings were made in the wall separating them to allow passengers to pass from one to the other without going into the street.

Behind the Southern Railway Lettering you can just see where the LC&DR letters were placed.