Hove railway station

Hove Southern
Platforms	3
Other information
Station code	HOV
Classification	DfT category C2
Key dates
1 October 1865	Opened (Cliftonville)
1 July 1879	Renamed (West Brighton)
1 October 1894	Renamed (Hove and West Brighton)
1 July 1895	Renamed (Hove)[1]
Passengers
2018/19	2.332 million
2019/20	2.329 million
Interchange	0.370 million
2020/21	0.631 million
Interchange	92,369
2021/22	1.457 million
Interchange	0.227 million
2022/23	1.767 million
Interchange	0.328 million
Notes
Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road

Gatwick Express trains stable at Hove from time to time.

It is the closest railway station to the

History

The original Hove railway station, situated further to the east, opened on 11 May 1840 by the

The present Hove station was opened on 1 October 1865. It was originally named Cliftonville,[5] then West Brighton, before being renamed Hove and West Brighton in 1894 and finally Hove in 1895.^[6]

Station architecture

The original station building, dating from the station's opening in 1865, is on the south side of the line and to the east of the present ticket office and concourse, being separated from this by a long footbridge (a public right of way) linking the residential roads of Goldstone Villas and Hove Park Villas. The section of road on which the original building stands is called Station Approach. It is currently in commercial use. The design is very similar to that of the buildings still in use at West Worthing, Shoreham-by-Sea, Portslade and London Road stations, and the former Kemp Town station in Brighton.

In 1893, coinciding with the first renaming, a new building was provided to the west. This contains the current ticket office and other station facilities. A large steel and glass

The island platform is reached by subway; access from the footbridge between the old and new buildings is no longer possible, as the stairs from it are locked out of use. This platform has a modest building incorporating a café, staff accommodation and waiting room, with a separate toilet block. A wide canopy runs for most of the length of the platform.

Future developments

In 2007, a Department for Transport white paper on the Thameslink Programme contained proposals to extend the Thameslink network to various additional routes in southern England; one of these would have been the section of the West Coastway line between Hove and Littlehampton, with services running via the Cliftonville Curve from the Brighton Main Line.^[7] Two trains per peak hour have been extended from London Bridge to Bedford from 20 May 2018 and an extra service will join in December 2018.^{[8][needs update]} These services were removed in 2023.

Layout

Both the West Coastway line (through the station from Brighton) and the Cliftonville Curve (a few hundred metres east of the station, connecting services to/from the west with the Brighton to London mainline) are double track.

There are three running lines through the station, on which – numbered from north to south - island platform faces 1 and 2 can be (and are) used for any combination of arrival or departure, whilst southernmost platform 3 (where the main entrance, ticketing facilities and newspaper shop are found - see photo of building taken from Goldstone Villas, to the south) cannot be used for eastbound arrivals from the West Coastway or departures towards London in the up direction.^{[citation needed]}

Services

All services at Hove are operated by Southern using Class 377 EMUs.

The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is:^[9]

• 2 tph to London Victoria via Gatwick Airport
• 4 tph to Brighton
• 2 tph to Littlehampton
• 1 tph to Portsmouth Harbour
• 1 tph to Southampton Central

During the peak hours, the station is served by a small number of direct trains between Brighton and Littlehampton, as well as a single peak hour service per day between London Bridge and Littlehampton.

Until May 2022, Great Western Railway operated limited services between Brighton, Portsmouth Harbour and Bristol Temple Meads that called at Hove.^[10][11] Thameslink also operated peak services between Littlehampton and Bedford until January 2023. These services were cut back to London Bridge in January 2023, before the service transferred to Southern in May 2023^{[citation needed]}

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Brighton		West Coastway Line		Aldrington or Portslade
Preston Park		Southern Brighton Main Line		Portslade

See also

• Grade II listed buildings in Brighton and Hove: E–H

References