epw056338 ENGLAND (1938). The railway station, St Mary's Church and the town, Rickmansworth, 1938

This is an attractive picture of the old town of Ricky seen from the south and with the former LMS station on Church Street, at the terminus of the 1862 LMS branch from Watford. Despite living within one mile of this short branch line, on the postwar housing estate at South Oxhey, I never witnessed a single train on this track between 1953 and 1962! However, I've walked the popular Ebury Way on several occasions once the tracks were eventually removed in the 1980s.

Located at the junction of the River Colne with its tributaries, the Chess and Gade, the church and manor house at Rickmansworth lay immediately north of the water meadows. The Grand Junction Canal arrived in the 1790s, to be followed later by the 1862 London & North Western Railway branch from Watford and, even later, the Metropolitan Railway to the north of the town in 1887.



Rickmansworth Church Street Station was originally a simple wooden structure, which was reputedly a leaky and flimsy structure. Nevertheless, it was a busy terminus for both freight and passengers in the last decades of the Victorian era. During 1921/22, the wooden building was replaced by a more substantial brick structure, with several offices, waiting rooms and signal levers. At its peak in the early prewar period, there were six sidings and a large good shed. However, competition from the omnibus and the Met during the 1920s resulted in reduced freight and passengers on the LMSR Branch. From the 1860s until 1927, the branch was operated by steam powered rail-motors, and when electrification of the system was completed, old Joint Stock trains were used until 1939. From then onwards, Oerlikon saloon car sets were used until closure in 1952. Keen railway buffs may be able to make out the train waiting at the platform in the photo for the short, journey to Watford High Street/Junction. Rickmansworth (Church Street) station was closed, on March 2nd,1952, to passengers when the final train departed at 10.45 and after years of declining ticket sales, the decision to close the branch came as no surprise. A limited freight service continued until January 1967.