The Centurion Way, which we’re forced to use so often at present, is what remains of the Chichester
to Midhurst railway. This left the main line at Bishops Luffa School, went through Lavant, Singleton and Cocking arriving at Midhurst after passing through three tunnels under the Downs. Although only single track in most places, it was still rather expensive due to the extensive engineering works needed, opening in 1881.

There are still plenty of traces of the railway along the relatively flat and straight route that’s been surfaced to become a a footpath and cycleway. Naturally there are plenty of bridges, I find this small one that’s for agricultural access the
most interesting. Other road bridges are in good condition but that’s not surprising as the railway was only dismantled in 1993. It had only been for occasional, mainly freight use, over the previous twenty years.

There are plenty of sleepers around if you poke about, like these ones
supporting the bank, that are gently rotting away. Every fifty yards or so are the telegraph poles that followed the track, most have lost their wire supports but some still have the insulators in place. Seeing them invokes a vision of the past when steam tank locomotives chuffed there way noisily along until they were replaced by Thumper diesel units.

Passenger services were terminated in 1935 apart from special services laid on to the impressive station at Singleton which served the race course at Goodwood. It’s hard to believe that it had four platforms and opulent buildings on such a diminutive line but that’s what the race goers expected. Apparently the wood panelled bar was particularly impressive, what a sight it must have been in it’s heyday.

 

Some of the freight trains carried sugar beet but the majority apparently serviced the Francis Baker Quarry which was adjacent to Hunters Race before Lavant. The fields there always looked like they’d been quarried but this picture confirms what it had been like thirty years or more ago. Like so many post industrial sites, very little remains to suggest the hive of activity that used to be there.