Qualla: Fenchurch Street railway station

Fenchurch Street railway station: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The name comes from the Latin faenum, meaning hay. Hay markets had stood in this corner of the City since long before any railway. In 1840, when the Corporation of London had been refusing entry to one railway company after another, it finally granted permission to the London and Blackwall Railway to build a terminus inside its boundaries, a tiny piece of land in the southeastern corner of the City. William Tite designed the original building. It opened on 20 July 1841. Steam locomotives were not allowed near it for the first eight years, and trains rolled in by their own momentum after being released downhill from the Minories. Fenchurch Street has been a quietly strange place ever since.

Image: Public domain

Fenchurch Street railway station: Trains by Gravity

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dirk Ingo Franke, CC BY 3.0. Before 1849 the L&BR had a particular method of operation. Trains were hauled uphill from Blackwall by cable to the Minories terminus, then released downhill on a long shallow grade so they could reach Fenchurch Street under their own momentum. The reverse trip required manual pu...

Image: Dirk Ingo Franke | CC BY 3.0

Fenchurch Street railway station: The First Railway Murder

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martin Addison, CC BY-SA 2.0. On the evening of 9 July 1864, Thomas Briggs, a 69-year-old chief clerk at a City bank, boarded a North London Railway train at Fenchurch Street to travel home to Hackney. He was found later that night on the tracks near Hackney Wick, dying from head injuries. He had been beaten ...

Image: Martin Addison | CC BY-SA 2.0

Fenchurch Street railway station: The Vaulted Roof and the Berkley Hall

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The original uploader was Edwin at English Wikipedia., Public domain. The original Tite station was rebuilt in 1854 to accommodate the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway, a joint venture between the L&BR and the Eastern Counties Railway. The new design was by George Berkley and featured a trussed-arch vaulted roof 32 metres by 91 metres, two new ...

Image: The original uploader was Edwin at English Wikipedia. | Public domain

Fenchurch Street railway station: The Misery Line

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit calflier001, CC BY-SA 2.0. By the late 1980s the former LTSR line was carrying over 50,000 passengers a day on infrastructure fifty years old. The trains were dirty, the trains were crowded, the trains were late. The line became known as "the misery line." In 1989 Sir Robert Reid called the service from Fe...

Image: calflier001 | CC BY-SA 2.0

Fenchurch Street railway station: Monopoly and Douglas Adams

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dirk Ingo Franke, CC BY-SA 3.0. Fenchurch Street is the smallest and oldest of the four railway stations on the standard British Monopoly board, alongside King's Cross, Marylebone, and Liverpool Street. All four were once LNER terminals. The poet John Betjeman, who failed to save Euston Arch but saved much else...

Image: Dirk Ingo Franke | CC BY-SA 3.0