Lea Bridge Station

Lea Bridge Road Station was the first railway station in the area. It was part of a line running out to Broxbourne from Bishopsgate in the city of London, and was opened in September 1840

 

The station house was an elegant building, complete with a bell tower. This housed a bell which was rung whenever a train was due.

The station itself was at road level, on a bridge over the tracks, and passengers went down steps to get to the platforms
Before the coming of this station, the local coach company, Wraggs, had run a horse horse drawn coach service right into the City of London, and continued to do so for a few years after the railway opened.
As the trains became more accepted, and because the station was at some distance from the large houses spread around Hoe Street and Marsh Street (Later re-named the High Street) Wraggs changed their service, offering instead a horse coach to the station.
The station was used almost entirely by gentlemen travelling to City offices, and there were no cheaper early tickets for workmen for many years.
After only four years in service, in 1844, all the tracks were taken up on the line and re-laid to match the gauge (width ) that was becoming standard throughout London, and eventually the whole country
In 1870 It was temporarily connected to the new station at St James Street, and Shern Hall Street, (part of the Chingford Line,) in order to run trains on that line while some parts of it were still being built.
Because the land round the station was low-lying and still rather marshy, it never became heavily built up with houses, and a lot of the land round the station was developed as railway shunting yards, light industry and warehousing.

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