Bradshaw’s Britain: Havant to Guildford

For his tenth and final foray onto the south of England’s rail network armed with Bradshaw’s 1863 Handbook (or at least a facsimile copy of it), Stephen Roberts tackles a section of the Portsmouth Direct Line to London.

In this article:

• Portsmouth lacked a direct rail link to London initially; the Portsmouth Direct Line, completed in 1859, resolved this.
• Stops along the line, like Havant and Petersfield, highlight historical landmarks, inns, and notable events, past and present.
• Guildford, the line's major hub, boasts rich history, architectural gems, and connections to notable figures like Alan Turing.

Portsmouth was neglected by the railways at first.

The London & Southampton Railway (L&SR) had opened to Southampton in May 1840, with an extension to Gosport (November 1841) bringing the railway within sight of Portsmouth - albeit the other side of Portsmouth Harbour, so necessitating a boat trip to actually reach Portsmouth itself.

This would be rectified by the extension of the Brighton and Chichester Railway, which opened to Havant in March 1847 and then to Portsmouth in June 1847.

The completion of a triangular junction connecting Cosham (Southampton-bound) with Havant (Chichester-bound) and Hilsea (Portsmouth-bound), effectively by the following year (1848), resolved the Portsmouth issue for now.

But what the naval city lacked was a direct train of its own to London.

The Direct Line

The Portsmouth Direct Line is the route betwixt Woking (Surrey) and Portsmouth (Hampshire).

Today, it is the principal line for passengers travelling between the capital, the cathedral town of Guildford (a seeming misnomer in itself, as a cathedral normally goes hand in glove with city status), and the naval base and ferry port of Portsmouth.

The line between Guildford and Godalming had opened in October 1849. It would be another ten years before the line reached Havant (1859), with more shenanigans to follow in connection with through running between Havant and Portsmouth before the job was finally done.

Bradshaw is travelling the ‘London and Portsmouth Direct’ in the other direction to us, southwards from Guildford, so gives the lowdown on the line before tackling the Godalming-Portsmouth section: “This route is a continuation of the line via Guildford and Godalming to Portsmouth, bringing the latter place about 21 miles nearer London than by the old route via Bishopstoke (Eastleigh) - the stations are Milford, Witley, Haslemere, Liphook, Liss, Petersfield, Rowland’s Castle and Havant.”

So, he’s pithily explained the need for the line, as well as listing most of the stations - but in the reverse order to us.

It’s not really part of my brief, but I feel I’d like to explain the origins of Eastleigh (of railway works fame).

Yes, it actually opened as Bishopstoke in 1839, built by the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) on today’s South West Main Line. It didn’t settle on its modern name of Eastleigh until 1923.

Havant

In offering that background, I’ve diverted from my Bradshaw a bit, although I can happily report that all the necessary lines were in place by the time my 1863 Handbook was published.

Bradshaw records that “the junction of the South Coast and South Western Lines is at Portcreek Junction, between Havant and Cosham, but it is necessary to go to Portsmouth to pass from one line to the other”.

I guess that might have been the ongoing turf wars, as the infrastructure appeared to be in place.

Bradshaw is brief on Havant, where he recommends that I tuck up safe and sound at the Bear, enjoy the Saturday market, and maybe take an omnibus to Hayling - the branch from Havant to Hayling being one for the near future, opening in 1867 and closing in 1963.

The Bear is still going strong, a short walk from the town centre in East Street. It’s a Greene King inn these days, but replete with Georgian architecture, coaching inn credentials, and a visit from Queen Victoria.

Winston Churchill and Dwight (Ike) Eisenhower were both here during the Second World War. More importantly, I’ve also stayed here.

Havant station was opened in March 1847 by the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway (LB&SCR), initially as Havant Halt, 500 metres east of today’s station. A serious fire caused the original one to be demolished.

A new station was then built 200 metres west to accommodate the new London & South Western Railway (L&SWR) Portsmouth Direct Line.

But this would also face demolition as the station was resited for a second time, 300 metres further west (in 1863), in readiness for the Hayling Island line. It was to have three platforms, two for main line services and one for the branch.

The so-called ‘Battle of Havant’ occurred when the two rival companies vied over rights to run trains over LB&SCR rails into Portsmouth, which the LSWR needed if its trains were to reach the port.

It was a two-year dispute, commencing in 1858, which featured line blocking and the use of a temporary halt for a year.

Rowlands Castle

Bradshaw mentions ‘Rowland’s Castle’ (that’s all he does - he mentions it) in the same breath that he deals with Havant. I hate it when he does that, as I shall have to work harder in order to fill in his gaps. Unfortunately, it’s not the last time he’ll play this trick on me on this particular journey.

Rowlands Castle is a village of some 2,750 souls these days, and as well as offering a landmark village green it has but a few remains of its once powerful Motte and Bailey castle. Apparently, Henry II, father of the Lionheart and King John, spent several days here “in hunting and amusement” (as you do).

The station opened in January 1859 and is Rowlands Castle (no apostrophe). Bradshaw, however, in a moment of errant apostrophe madness, gives it a spot of punctuation (Rowland’s Castle).

Notwithstanding that, the station is pleasing, Grade 2 Listed, and a William Tite construct.

There was once a halt between Rowlands Castle and the next station at Petersfield. Woodcroft Halt was built for a naval establishment - the naval convalescent home at nearby Ditcham Park. But it was only open briefly (1943-45) during the Second World War (1943-45).

Petersfield

At Petersfield we are treated to a bit of Bradshaw hyperbole. He describes it as “a neat little town of great antiquity. It has a population of 5,655 and returns one member to parliament. Near the chapel there is an equestrian statue of William III, built by the Joliffes of Merstham.”

Bradshaw is right about the antiquity, for Petersfield’s first charter was granted in the 12th century. It’s a town that became rich from the wool trade, then became famed as a coaching centre (apparently there were once nine coaching inns with around 27 coaches a day coming through).

I’m surprised my guide doesn’t mention the wool, as he’s usually pretty hot on a place’s trades and manufactures. I can inform him that Sheep Street is a giveaway, while The Spain is possibly referring to the Spanish wool merchants who bought at the market in Petersfield.

That equestrian statue of William III (of William and Mary fame) is an oddity, as he’s dressed in Roman togs - nifty for someone from the Netherlands who became one of our later Stuart monarchs).

But I’ve digressed a bit from my railway story. Petersfield station opened in 1859 and was once four platforms, reduced to two. One of the extra platforms served a branch to Midhurst, which had opened in 1864 (the year after my Bradshaw, so we’ll forgive him its omission) but lost its passenger traffic in 1955.

Liss

Another station ignored by Bradshaw, Liss also opened in 1859.

It is a two-platform affair which is fairly uninspiring today, but it once had another station adjacent to it that acted as the southern terminus of the Longmoor Military Railway (LMR).

This was built by the Royal Engineers in 1903 (40-or-so years after my Bradshaw) for the purposes of training military staff on railway construction and ops (although the southern extension to Liss wasn’t opened for another 30 years, in 1933). Railway activities ceased on the LMR in 1969.

The LMR ran as far north as Bordon, where the station was adjacent to another for the Bentley and Bordon Light Railway - a 4½-mile line serving an army camp at Bordon and terminating at Bentley (1854) on the Farnham, Alton, Winchester line.

The Bordon Light Railway opened in 1905 with passenger services eventually ceasing in 1957.

Liphook

North-east of Petersfield, and on the road to Haslemere, is Liphook.

Bradshaw has nothing to say here, which is a great shame as he’s missed a trick with the Royal Anchor Hotel - a famous late-17th century coaching inn that was patronised by the rich and famous, including Queen Victoria, who seems to pop up everywhere.

It was also visited by none other than General Blücher (1742-1819), the Prussian field marshal who built quite the reputation for himself during the Napoleonic Wars, leading his army against Bonaparte at the Battle of Leipzig (October 1813) and then famously at Waterloo (June 1815), when his timely intervention finally tipped the scales in the favour of Wellington’s Anglo-Allied force.

Given that these legendary events had occurred less than 50 years before my 1863 Bradshaw, I’m surprised that my guide didn’t use the handy hook provided by the Royal Anchor to sally forth with some Napoleonic verbosity.

Liphook station, meanwhile, was another 1859 opening and is fairly devoid of interest.

And so we cross from Hampshire into Surrey.

Haslemere

I can’t believe that Bradshaw has contented himself with merely giving Haslemere a name-check, as he’s done with Liss and Liphook, and will also do with Witley and Milford.

Haslemere is set amid hilly, wooded country, much of it in the custodianship of the National Trust.

A guidebook I have that’s all of 110 years after Bradshaw names two outstanding attractions for this place - neither of which my handbook would have known about, so perhaps that’s why he omitted Haslemere.

The Educational Museum (1888) was founded by an eminent Victorian surgeon, Sir Jonathan Hutchinson, who had the idea of having a place where ‘stuff’ could be exhibited and preserved, but where this could be done in conjunction with “instructive and interesting talks”.

The Dolmetsch Workshops, meanwhile, were founded by Arnold Dolmetsch, a musician of Swiss ancestry. He settled in Haslemere in 1917 and established his eponymous workshops and factory here shortly after the end of the First World War, specialising in the manufacture of musical instruments and where visitors were welcome.

I’m sure that a few decades on, Bradshaw would have been recommending an overnighter in Haslemere to take in these educational and cultural opportunities.

Haslemere station (1859) has three platforms, the last of which was added in 1938, making it the only intermediate station on the Havant-Guildford line that has more than the standard two platforms.

Witley

Bradshaw almost gets into full voice at Witley, which he records as the station for Petworth. Otherwise, he seems content to just continue listing the names of the stations. It’s unusual for him, and it’s disappointing.

He does OK to mention Petworth, a “town which stands at the gates of Petworth House” (so it’s said), the magnificent mansion built towards the end of the 17th century by the Duke of Somerset.

He doesn’t elaborate, so I don’t know whether he’s recommending the town or the house or both, but I suspect it’s the house.

There’s a lot of artwork to gawp at, so it seems appropriate that portraitist Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92) stayed there for some time.

Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721), the sculptor/woodcarver, is also said to have stayed in the town while he was working at Petworth House.

Witley may be just a sizeable village, but it has some claims to fame - including the residence of formrer Prime Minister David Lloyd-George (1863-1945), born in the year of my Bradshaw, and who had a country bolthole here.

There’s also novelist George Eliot (1819-90), aka Mary Ann Evans, who spent her final years here when she was presumably able to reflect on her many writings.

Petworth and Witley - really quite the places. The station opened as Witley and Chiddingfold in 1859 and was renamed Witley in 1947.

Milford

This place, Milford, puts me in mind of Brief Encounter (1945), where a lot of the action occurred at ‘Milford Junction station’ - aka Carnforth, of course.

This Milford is quite different. It’s real for a start.

The village was modest until the arrival of the Portsmouth Direct Line, but grew after that to become today’s community of more than 4,000 souls.

Apparently, the place gets a mention in Aldous Huxley’s dystopian Brave New World (1932), so it’s perhaps apt that an episode of Doctor Who was also part-filmed here, at the hospital, in 1969.

Milford station (the real one) was another 1859 opening.

Godalming

Godalming is just 3¾miles from Guildford. And here, at last, Bradshaw gets into his stride.

With a population of 2,321 (22,000 or so these days), he recommends a stay at the King’s Arms (every town should have one).

But my guide has missed some tasty morsels about this old coaching inn, which was rebuilt in 1753 but is much older than that, by all accounts.

In 1689, for example, it’s recorded that Peter the Great ate rather well here. A later Russian Tsar to have been a guest here was Alexander I, in 1816.

Godalming “is situated on the banks of the Wye, at a point where that river divides into several streams; it is a considerable trading and manufacturing town. The manufactures are stocking weaving of all kinds, fleecy hosiery, blankets, worsteds, cotton cloths etc. It consists of a principal street, running east and west, and several smaller ones; the church is much admired and has a handsome spire.”

Missing it only by a decade or so, Bradshaw wasn’t to know about the famous Charterhouse School, which has been educating the well-off here since 1872, having relocated from London where it had been originally founded in the early 17th century by a wealthy coal merchant.

The chapel was added in 1925 as a memorial for ‘Old Carthusians’ who had been killed during the First World war.

The first FA Cup Final was contested in the same year that Charterhouse moved to Godalming. The early finals were dominated by the public school set-up, with Old Carthusians winning the 1881 final (walloping Old Etonians 3-0).

Today’s Godalming station was another 1859 opening, although there was an earlier station - a single-platform terminus of 1849 for the Guildford-Godalming line - prior to its extension on to Havant.

Farncombe

A village on the periphery of Godalming, Farncombe has an entry in the Domesday Book.

It is also a place of interest for those who can’t get enough of the Titanic disaster, for John George ‘Jack’ Phillips (1887-1912) was born in the village.

He was the ill-fated liner’s senior wireless operator who continued working as the ship foundered, trying manfully to bring other ships to her rescue.

He also has a pub named after him in Godalming High Street - The Jack Phillips.

We can forgive Bradshaw for not mentioning Farncombe, as the station was not opened until 1897 as a minor stop on the Portsmouth Direct, allegedly built at the behest of one of the directors of the LSWR, who had his country pile nearby.

Guildford

We’ve arrived in Guildford and at last Bradshaw does what he does best - he begins to describes things.

Population 8,020 (over 77,000 today), my guide directs me to either the White Lion or White Hart.

The White Lion appears to have been demolished in 1956 (it was one of the first of Guildford’s five large coaching inns) and replaced with today’s White Lion Walk shopping centre. The White Hart, however, eludes me.

Bradshaw also bamboozles me with a plethora of options should I wish to strike out from the station utilising something other than Shanks’ Pony.

There are “omnibuses to and from the station”, “post horses, flys etc at the station and hotels”, and “carriers to London (twice weekly)” and a bewildering array of other places - including Chichester, the aforementioned Haslemere, Godalming, Liphook and Petersfield (which rather begs the question: why not just take the train?).

There’s also Woking, another destination we could assuredly attain via the rails. My guide seems intent on taking business away from the rail operators.

Bradshaw moves on to a description of the town “on the banks of the Wey”. And he duly praises its location - “spreading over the steep hill as it rises from the side of the river, is particularly picturesque”.

As for the layout, “it consists of a principal street, nearly a mile long … whence several smaller streets extend into the suburbs”.

We then launch into a description of Guildford Castle - “supposed to have been built as early as the time of the Anglo-Saxon kings”.

Bradshaw correctly identifies the keep as “the principal part now remaining” which is “of a quadrangular form, rising to the height of 70 feet and built on an artificial mound of earth”. And he encourages us within, for “admission may be had free on application to the proprietor of a school adjoining the castle grounds”.

The town’s trade is “considerable”, owing to its “central situation and convenient distance from the metropolis”, while the “guild or town-hall and the corn market” are picked out as particularly fine buildings.

The place has also done a brisk trade in authors, as the birthplace of P G Wodehouse (1881-1975), the place where Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll, 1832-98) died and is buried, and a town where Kazuo Ishiguro (born 1954) has hung his hat, albeit his childhood one.

It was also a youthful residence of codebreaker and computing pioneer Alan Turing (1912-54).

Guildford is a bit of an oddity, as it’s a town with a cathedral (we normally associate such churches with cities).

Bradshaw couldn’t mention it, of course, because it was the first cathedral built on an entirely new site in the south of England since Henry VIII’s Reformation.

Its foundation stone was laid in 1936. But with the project suspended during the Second World War, it was not until 1961 that work on the cathedral was finally completed.

If we’re still fancying a trip out, then Bradshaw mentions a “circular race-course” which can be found “two miles to the eastward of the town”. (Guildford Races were held at Merrow Downs until 1870.)

Guildford station is the largest beast on this little route by far, with seven operational platforms.

Opened in 1845, it’s a major junction on the Portsmouth Direct, as it also serves the North Downs Line that opened in 1849 (north to Reading with connection to Aldershot, and south to Redhill) and the New Guildford Line that opened in 1885 (and offers an alternative route towards London via either Epsom or Cobham).

We’re stopping here, but Bradshaw directs his readers onwards towards Aldershott (sic), and Farnborough and the South Western line.

Elsewhere in this section of the handbook, Bradshaw describes that line and records that: “Three-quarters of a mile beyond Woking a line branches off to the left to Guildford and Godalming, direct to Portsmouth, from which another branch diverges at Guildford, and extends to Ash, Farnham, and Alton.” Quite!

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