Haslemere was opened in 1859, then in a rather rural location with the centre of the town of Haslemere being nearly a kilometre away. The line the station was on was built speculatively by an independent party with the London & South Western Railway leasing it to keep it out of the hands of the South Eastern Railway [1]. The station remained a rather sleepy station into the twentieth century.
In the 1920s the station became the hub for a number of rural bus routes and in 1937 the line through Haslemere was electrified [2] and a third platform added. The station became steadily busier due to the rise of commuter traffic.
Haslemere is nowadays served by four South Western Railway (who also manage the station) London Waterloo services an hour, some terminating at the station. Recent additions to the station include a new footbridge enabling step-free access between the platforms (the original footbridge is also still in use) and an improved car park. The station used to have a goods yard either side of the station but these have now long gone replaced by an industrial estate and the car park.
South Western Railway 450 104 and 560 at Haslemere
New footbridge
Station frontage entrance
The older footbridge
Haslemere signalbox
At the end of the platform
[1] Vic Mitchell & Keith Smith, Woking to Portsmouth (Middleton Press, 1983) p. 1 [2] David Brown, Southern Electric Vol. 2 (Capital Transport, 2010) p. 25
