Chingford Station (CHI)

Address: Station Road, Chingford, London E4 6AL
Opened: 17 November 1873
Station Code: CHI
Fare Zone: 5

London Overground Line(s) Served:

Lea Valley Lines (Chingford Branch)

Service Pattern(s):

Four trains per hour to London Liverpool Street

Station History

The original proposal for a railway line through Chingford was mooted by the Eastern Counties Railway in the mid-1850s, although due to internal wrangling and financial issues, no action was taken by the company.

In fact, it was not until the ECR was merged with other lines to form the Great Eastern Railway that action was taken on the plan under the GER (Metropolitan Station and Railways Act) of 1864.

Under the act, a line was proposed to serve Epping Forest via a station at High Beach. Construction of the line began from just north of Stratford station in 1867, although the financial difficulties that had hit its predecessor also hit the GER and construction halted in 1868.

Local housing construction was continuing at a fast pace during this time and developer James Higham, recognising the need for a railway to help serve his properties, approached the GER with a considerable financial package to fund the building of the line.

The mandate of the GER (Metropolitan Station and Railways Act) was running out at this time, but the Government of the day extended the deadline to allow the construction of the line as far as Walthamstow. The new line, running to a temporary station at Shern Hall Street with intermediate stations at St James Street and Hoe Street, was opened by the GER on 24 April 1870.

The line was finally extended to Chingford in 1873, serving a terminus called Chingford Green, located on what is now Kings Road, in 1873.

‘Chingford Green’ lasted five years before the decision was taken to abandon it in favour of a more grand station located 600 yards north on the edge of the town, overlooking Epping Forest.

This new station opened in September 1882 and was considered detrimental to the local population, but was hoped to become a tourist trap to generate more revenue. The station was built in a through configuration with a track extending out onto an embankment in preparation for an extension further north.

This planned extension north to High Beach was scuppered before it was ever begun as Queen Victoria visited the area in May 1882 and declared that Epping Forest was to become open to the public and no further development would be allowed.

The new station continued to operate in this way and remained largely untouched until, following the cessation of the First World War and the realisation that the line had become overcrowded, improvements were made along the entire line, with four new carriage sidings and a new signal box being provided at Chingford.

With the grouping of the railways in 1923, the line and its stations came under the management of the London & North Eastern Railway, and it was under this management that colour light signalling was brought in to replace the existing semaphores in 1935.

Nationalisation in 1948 saw a change of management to the new British Railways (Eastern Region) and this company introduced the 1955 Modernisation Plan, which would see the Chingford line and its stations electrified, with this being achieved in the late 1950s, although electric train services did not commence until 12 November 1960.

Further modernisation of the station occurred in 1967 when the embankment beyond the station was removed to construct a bus station and the station itself was converted into the terminus that exists today.

With sectorisation of the railways in 1986, Chingford became part of Network Southeast. This continued until the Railways Act 1993 saw operations transferred to West Anglia Great Northern in January 1997, before further changes saw the franchise awarded to National Express in 2004.

The final changes of management regarding the Lea Valley lines happened in October 2012 and May 2015 with Abellio Greater Anglia taking the reins before Arriva Rail London assumed operations under the London Overground banner.