History

Like many rural railways the Mid-Hants Railway of today was originally promoted by a group of local landowners, business and professional men. Their first chairman was Edward Knight Esq., proprietor of the Chawton estate and a nephew of the novelist Jane Austen. As well as serving local interests it was intended to link the existing London and South Western Railway (LSWR) lines at Alton and Winchester and provide a direct route from the military camps at Aldershot to the south coast ports.

Opened in 1865, the railway climbs from the valley of the River Wey at Alton to a summit over 600 ft above sea level in a deep cutting at Chawton End, Four Marks, and then falls to the valley of the River Arle (a tributary of the Itchen) at Alresford. The lengthy 1 in 60 gradients either side of the watershed gave rise to the line's latter-day nickname among locomotive crews of "the Alps".

Close to the summit, Medstead station was opened in August 1868 to serve the village of that name, 1½ miles to the north. Built by engineers of the London and South Western Railway, which worked the line, it is rather more basic than the earlier stations built by the local company (of which Alresford and Ropley survive).

	Prior to 1914 - 1918 war ...         ... and in 1957        Two photos:  MHR archives

Four Marks, to the south of the station around the modern A31 road, grew up from the 1890s when farmland was split up and sold for development. The name refers to a place where the boundaries of four civil parishes once intersected. After the 1914-18 war many plots were occupied as smallholdings by ex-servicemen but today Four Marks is largely a commuter dormitory. Four Marks became a separate civil parish in 1933 and the Southern Railway renamed the station Medstead & Four Marks in 1937.

The station changed little over the years as local traffic was never very heavy. With increasing use of road transport after the 1939-45 war the goods yard was closed in 1964 and the station reduced to an unstaffed halt in 1967. The Mid-Hants line ultimately fell victim to the "Beeching plan" (the last to do so) and closed in February 1973. The track was lifted in 1976 and the station became derelict.

Volunteers of the latter-day Mid-Hants Railway (the "Watercress Line") began to rebuild the station from its derelict state in 1980. Track was relaid from Ropley and steam train services commenced in May 1983, extending to Alton in May 1985. Development of the station continued for some years, culminating with the erection of the footbridge in 1996. The goods yard area is being developed.

From: Keith Brown
Sent: 16 October 2007 22:28
Stephen – The original shelter at Medstead & Four Marks was similar to the present one, which was built on the existing foundations.  The main difference is that it had a wider opening than the present shelter and no doors or windows.
It was built in 1879 by the LSWR engineers’ dept., at a cost of £70.  We probably spent a bit more on its replacement.
I’m attaching a couple of pictures of the original shelter from our archives.  The first (not very clear, I’m afraid) is extracted from an Edwardian postcard.   It shows the opening panelled in, leaving a smaller doorway.  The original photo has been very heavily retouched, so I can’t absolutely guarantee that this feature is authentic.  But it does seem quite likely as we are rather exposed up here. The second shows shows the shelter in its final condition in the mid-1960s.  It was demolished after the signalbox and down platform were taken out of use in January 1967.
This kind of shelter was very common across the country – it was just about the most basic shelter you could get.  There are numerous detailed variants: for example the shelter at Corfe Castle, on the Swanage line, has a basically similar layout but with a ridged and tiled roof.  I’m not aware of any literature covering this kind of building specifically, although there are various published surveys of stations, including photos and drawings.  I think Oxford Publishing Co. (now part of Ian Allan Publishing) do one on Southern stations.
The replacement building (properly a waiting room rather than a shelter) was built around a wooden framework recovered from a large garage in the grounds of a country pub.  Unlike the original it has insulated, double-skinned walls and, with the addition of doors, is quite cosy in winter.  We have even equipped it with a coal stove, although we need to raise the height of the chimney since at the moment it is liable to kipper the occupants. It houses a display of photographs illustrating the history of the station and generally makes quite a nice (though under-used) exhibition space.
I hope this is helpful. I was interested to see the photos of your building.  Certainly, it could have been a platform shelter or waiting room, albeit a small one. In terms of construction it seems to be very similar to ours,  although it has obviously undergone quite a lot of work to turn it into a summerhouse and I wonder, for example, how original the windows are.  Redundant railway items can  turn up in the most unlikely places although old coach bodies seem to have been more commonly used  as garden buildings than platform shelters.
Keith Brown
Stationmaster

Suggestions for further reading (available from Watercress Line shops)

Roger Hardingham,  The Mid-Hants Railway from Construction to Closure (Runpast Publishing, Cheltenham, 1995)

G A Pryor,  Signal Boxes of the London & South Western Railway: A Study of Architectural Style (Oakwood Press, Usk, Monmouthshire, 2000)

Medstead and Four Marks station today     also

LSWR Type 1 Signalboxes

Diagram of the present-day signalling at M4M (in  .pdf format)

Changes (2005) to the signalling at M4M