Seaford

Seaford station serves - unsurprisingly - the small Sussex seaside town of the same name. Opened in 1864, it was originally intended to extend the line along the coast to Eastbourne, but this was never undertaken, and it has spent its life as the terminus of a short branch line from Lewes.


The station has an attractive main building in the Italianate domestic style favoured by the London Brighton and South Coast Railway, with two wings, with an elegant awning on the street side, and a long canopy supported on iron columns on the platform side. It is listed at Grade II as an example of an unaltered small Victorian terminus, complete with its canopies.


In its heyday, it was busy with summer excursions, and had a direct service to Haywards Heath with peak hour trains to London, two platforms and extensive carriage sidings. Now has just a half-hourly shuttle to and from Brighton via Newhaven and Lewes, and the line has been singled beyond Newhaven Harbour. Only one platform is in use.


The station still has a ticket office open part-time, a small car park, cycle rack, and a pasty shop and art gallery in the station building. Nevertheless, patronage is increasing, and the station now handles over three-quarters of a million passengers. The station has level access to and from the street.

It was great to be ble to get a taxi from the train station without any problems. The lady who drove me to a friends house was very polite and talkative.