History of Singleton Station
Singleton was a station of some importance and comprised two island platforms with substantial canopies…and there were three quarters of a mile of sidings which could hold 14 trains on race days.
Leslie Oppitz, Sussex Railways Remembered
The crowning glory of the newest section of Centurion Way has to be the old Singleton Station, restored to its former glory as part of the extension project opeened to the public in August 2025.
This site was once a key station on the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) line from Chichester to Midhurst.
Competition from new road transport, including a local bus route started in the 1920s, led to the suspension of passenger services by 1935. After this, the line was used solely for moving gravel and sugar beet until the early 1990s when the tracks were finally removed.
A Derailing Disaster
On the morning of 19th November, 1951 the fate of the line was sealed. A blocked pipe running underneath burst, causing a landslide that damaged the tracks. This led the 9.30am goods train – a Class C2X No. 3252 – to derail and slip into a stream.
The fire resulting from several tons of coal catching alight burned for over a week, and salvaging the wreck proved to be a long and complicated job. Cranes were used to move the wagons, but a large section of the embankment had to be removed, and temporary tracks laid, to tow the locomotive away for repair.
The whole operation took more than three months. The damage to the tracks was too bad to justify repairing them, and the line never ran another train.
Glorious Goodwood
On the first day of the races, the village began to fill up from 6am onwards…there was a barber’s saloon outside the station, and anyone who wanted could have a haircut before stepping into a hansom…
‘Goodwood Country in Old Photographs’, Richard Pailthorpe & Ian Serraillier
This event in the horse racing calendar was a highlight of the summer season, famously described by Edward VII as “a garden party with racing tacked on.”
Race days were busy. The platforms were crowded with passengers dressed in their finery, and numerous horses would have been unloaded from their boxes. Those who couldn’t afford a carriage or hansom cab faced a long walk across the South Downs to reach the racecourse. Some went via the local pubs first, greeted by children from the village.
Visits from Royalty
Singleton Station often hosted ‘Royal Trains’, with Edward VII as Prince of Wales a frequent visitor of the James family at West Dean. He previously stayed with the then Duke of Richmond at Goodwood House, but on one occasion, the Duke refused to allow Edward’s mistress, Alice Keppel, to stay. The lavish hospitality and excellent partridge and pheasant shooting at West Dean kept Edward coming back for many years, even after he became King.
Edward attended ‘Glorious Goodwood’ almost every year. He was responsible for swapping the traditional top hat and tails worn by male racegoers for the more casual lounge suit and Panama hat, a dress code still synonymous with Goodwood today.
Singleton Station Today
As part of the recent route extension project, the station platforms have been sensitively restored, giving users of Centurion Way an ideal place to take a break and imagine how the site might have looked and sounded in its heyday.
Look out for the replica running board signs the footprints of the original platform shelters marked out in brick, and original railway heritage items that were uncvoered during the restoration.
