Grange Road Station

It was 1973 and we were about to move into our next home situated on a new development in the rural area of Crawley Down in West Sussex. I’d had previous romantic connections with the area and remembered the many times I had travelled up there to see my girlfriend courtesy of British rail and Grange Road railway station. Then, some 10 years later and married, I was about to return, but, to my horror I found the familiar station in ruins and up for demolition. This study is an attempt to record its remains before it vanished forever.

I hung the picture in the lounge of our new home. As an interesting footnote, the local doctor who was visiting our new baby at the time offered to buy it – obviously for sentimental reasons because he’d spent his entire life in Crawley Down and remembered the station in its heyday. People don’t seem to like their surroundings altered because they identify with their environment.

Approx 1973

Pen & Ink