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Lea Bridge is a
railway station on the line between Stratford and Tottenham Hale
on the Lea Valley Lines, which reopened on the evening of 15 May
2016 with the full service beginning on 16 May 2016, operated by
Greater Anglia.
The station is
located on Argall Way, close to its junction with Lea Bridge Road
(A104) and Orient Way, serving the areas of Lea Bridge and Leyton
in the London Borough of Waltham Forest, north-east London. The
original station operated from 1840 to 1985 and was accessed via
the north side of Lea Bridge Road as it crosses the tracks.
The station was
opened on 15 September 1840 by the Northern and Eastern Railway
as Lea Bridge Road and is thought to be the earliest example of a
station having its building on a road bridge, with staircases
down to the platforms. The original station building was an
attractive Italianate style structure designed by Sancton Wood
(1815-1886) and featured a bell turret on the roof with a bell
that was rung when a train was due. The line was initially laid
to a gauge of 5 ft (1,524 mm) but already this had been
identified as non-standard, and between 5 September and 7 October
1844 the whole network was re-laid to 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435
mm) standard gauge.
The Northern
and Eastern Railway was leased by the Eastern Counties Railway,
which operated the station. The ECR became part of the Great
Eastern Railway (GER) in 1862. The GER established its signal
works (which included a dummy signal box) on the eastern side of
the line; the works were demolished in 1939 and replaced by a
parcels depot. To the south of the station were the large Temple
Mills marshalling yards, and the station would have seen large
numbers of goods trains passing. In 1870 a line was opened to
Shern Hall Street station (a temporary station located west of
the present-day Wood Street station) and a shuttle service
operated between Lea Bridge and Shern Hall Street, commencing
traffic on 24 April 1870. Prior to this, a horse bus operating
between Walthamstow and Lea Bridge had met all trains arriving at
the station. The station was renamed Lea Bridge in 1841.
In 1923 the GER
became part of the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). In
the 1930s the station was served by trains to Liverpool Street
(via Stratford), to North Woolwich (via Stratford low level
platforms), and to Hertford East and Palace Gates. At that time
there were Sunday services via the Hall Farm curve to the
Chingford branch. On 31 March 1944 the station building was
gutted by fire, although the frontage survived. After World War
II, in 1948, the railways of the UK were nationalised, and
operation of the station passed to British Railways Eastern
Region. The Hall Farm spur line through to the Chingford branch
was rarely used and, despite being electrified in 1960, the line
was lifted in 1967.
The station
became an unstaffed halt in 1976 and the station building was
demolished at about that time. By then, the only trains serving
Lea Bridge were those operating between Tottenham Hale and North
Woolwich via Stratford (low level platforms), and the withdrawal
of that service led to the closure of the station on 8 July 1985.
The simple open-sided shelter, located on the road bridge over
the tracks, and which had replaced the original station
buildings, was also demolished in 1985.
The last train
consisted of a two-car Cravens Class 105 DMU.
In December
2005 a new service to and from Stratford reintroduced regular
passenger trains passing through the closed station.
For many years,
plans were under consideration to rebuild and reopen the station
and the nearby Hall Farm Curve junction, as part of wider plans
for the redevelopment of the Stratford and Lower Lea Valley area.
In January 2013 it was announced that plans had been approved to
rebuild and reopen the station. Construction on the £6.5m
scheme was planned to start in spring 2014. The station was
included in Network Rail's Route Specification for Anglia in 2014
for opening within the next five years.
In October
2013, the overgrown platforms were cleared in preparation for
construction of the new station building. The new buildings were
to be situated on the up side (towards Stratford) rather than on
the road bridge over the line, and the platforms were to be
linked by a footbridge. Estimates by Transport for London (TfL)
show 352,000 entries and exits annually by 2031 with a service of
two trains per hour. It was hoped that—after 29 years of
closure—the station would reopen in late 2014. The
construction date slipped, but work started in July 2015; the
station reopened on the evening of Sunday 15 May 2016 with the
full service beginning on Monday, 16 May 2016.
London Buses
routes that serve the station are 55 and 56 and night routes N38
and N55.
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