BY VICTOR SPINK
Chertsey was a town served by the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) from Waterloo via a short Weybridge branch line of the main line to the southwest of England. Why a branch line should be struck out north from Weybridge to just halt at Chertsey in 1848, during the railway building mania, is quizzical unless the LSWR designers were always going to carry the line on through to Virginia Water. One might reason that there were many large houses in the Chertsey area owned by important land owning families with influence.
Nevertheless eighteen years later and with some ceremony on the Monday the 1st of October 1866 the railway line was extended from Virginia Water – Chertsey – Addlestone – Weybridge with railway services beginning early that morning with the first steam train puffing on its way south, this meant that Chertsey was no longer at the end of a branch line and it was just a through station for a lot of the new passengers.
Virginia Water passengers wanting to travel far south and west of the country now had the Weybridge-Byfleet link to do so. Weybridge, Addlestone and Chertsey, well seasoned travellers found they had connections to the East, West, and as far northerly as Dundee West station in Scotland. Travelling complete with changes was via Reading, Birmingham, Crewe, Carlisle, and Edinburgh, going up onto Dundee.
To reflect the importance of the new extension, a grand new station building for Chertsey was derived from an earlier prototype design for the LSWR by the famous London architect, Sir William Tite who designed Windsor and Eton Station among many others.
The town of Virginia Water prospered more because it was connected to London and elsewhere by more than just the one line. For instance passengers coming up from the port of Southampton to Windsor Castle could now do so with ease and in less than three hours because of the new link and interchange.
Then in the 1870s The Holloway Sanatorium was built at Virginia Water with all the grandeur and finesse that the late Victorian builders and decorators could lavish upon it. By building such a large distinguished Victorian Gothic pile so close to the station, it would have boosted the railway station’s throughput even more. The purpose and actuality of extending the line from Chertsey to Virginia Water in 1866 must have given the directors and shareholders of the London and South Western Railway company a great deal of satisfaction. Last year 2020, 608,000 customers used Virginia Water station, with 128,000 using the platforms for interchanges. The whole of Virginia Water and district has prospered ever since because of the 1866 railway line extension and the landmark Sanatorium to what it is today.