The Downs Link is the walking, cycling and riding route that follows the disused railway line from Shoreham along by the River Adur towards Bramber and Steyning. The railway was closed in the 1960s and most traces of it are long lost. But earlier this year four new interactive display boards were installed near the former Bramber station.
EVENT CANCELLED
The Lost Railway was to have been the topic of a Shoreham Society talk on Friday 20 September by Reina Alston and Russell Barnes of the Steyning & District Community Partnership who initiated the project, but it has had to be cancelled. The display boards have been a three-year project through concept, design and production in collaboration with Southeast Communities Rail Partnership with funding support from South Downs National Park and the Community Rail Network.
The well-illustrated display boards show the route and timeline of the railway from Shoreham to Steyning and how it eventually ran on to Horsham and beyond. QR codes on the boards give access to much more information and an audio commentary about the Steyning Line.
You can find them near where the Downs Link path crosses the Bramber Roundabout on the A283.
Three boards showing the timeline and route of the railway and about Bramber station are on the Downs Link path just before it reaches the roundabout. The fourth, about Steyning station, is on the footpath just north of the roundabout.
If you look around there carefully you can just make out where the railway would have passed through the trees and the undergrowth and where Bramber station would once have stood.
Hope this is sort of comment you want: – Sounds interesting. I remember that the line was closed not long after we moved to Shoreham in 1966. Seem to remember that it went up to Horsham which now would be really useful and, even then, was a sad end to the line’s existence.
There was at about that time a bus driver, not the happiest of men, whom I later discovered through a film issued and available at public libraries, that there was an understandable reason for his unhappiness and resentment of Dr Beeching having been able to remove so many branch lines.
I suppose there is no possibility of its being opened again.