Long a quiet and picturesque spot in Sussex, as the 19th century dawned, Henfield found itself a stop on the busy London to Brighton coaching route, before the railway arrived half a century later casting all else before it. Spurring a vibrant century long market gardening industry it was also then to depart. See some of the highlights of the people, places, industries and recreations of Henfield past.
If you have historic photographs of Henfield in your personal album, please let us know and we will be happy to consider them for accession to the collection.
If you have historic photographs of Henfield in your personal album, please let us know and we will be happy to consider them for accession to the collection.
Why not explore...
Marking the Platinum Jubilee celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, see some of Henfield's many royal celebrations past...
Individual subject areas elsewhere on the site...
Featured Photograph
Locomotive 'Polegate' about to set set off towards Steyning, around 1920 or a little earlier. The two crewmen are posing along with the station porter on the tracks and the customary milk churn sits beside the station sign.
This engine - No. 392 - was built nearby at the Brighton works in 1894 for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR), being designed by the Superintendent there, Robert Billinton (who was to die in office after a life of designing engines). It was withdrawn after a reasonable, but not overlong, length of service in the first round of withdrawals of this class in 1933. Some of its sister engines served into the 1950s.
Forming in 1846 via the merger of five young railway companies, the LB&SCR was itself merged with several others to form the Southern Railway in 1923. Henfield Station closed along with the rest of the branch line in March 1966.
(Image: Henfield Museum)
Selected B&W and Sepia Gallery
Interested in finding a photo of something specific from Henfield's past or searching for a relative? Get in touch - we may have what you're looking for in our large archive. Please contact us for commercial use or if you would like to use a high quality or restored version of any of the museum collection images below.
Unless stated otherwise, images on this page marked as from the Henfield Museum collection are licensed for educational and non commercial use under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA). Please credit 'Henfield Museum' and contact us to use an image for commercial purposes or at a higher quality.