Summersdale Neighbourhood Character Appraisal - 5

in 1876 was needed to authorise compulsory purchase of land for the track.
The tender to build and manage the line from Thomas Oliver of Horsham
was accepted by the Board of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway
in July 1878, and Robert Dendy was paid £1,374.10s in November 1879 for
the track bed across Warren Farm.

The line eventually opened for a full three-class passenger service from
Chichester to Pulborough via Midhurst on 11 July 1881. Unfortunately, the
line could not compete with the motor car and the passenger service ended
in 1935. A long siding of over half a mile on the downside south of Lavant
Station was opened in 1913. It ran under the Lavant Road and The Drive to
the newly opened gravel pits on the Stride Estate, and was still in operation
in 1947. A foreshortened line serviced the Lavant sugar beet industry until
1969, and the Lavant gravel beds from 1971 to 1991 when it closed for good
and the line lifted. The track bed became the Centurion Way, a tarmac path
for pedestrians and cyclists.

In March 1901 the Bognor Observer reported hearsay of an application to
the railway company for a station to be built at the Brandy Hole Bridge to
serve Stride’s residential development in Summersdale. The railway
company did not approve the proposal and no more was heard of it. The
same edition also suggested a penny bus service was about to start between
the Chichester railway station and Summersdale, where the development of
the estate was said to be progressing well. The area was described as ‘A dry
and healthy location, with gas and water laid on, and rates very low.’ Strides
offered special terms by which the house became the absolute and
unencumbered property of the purchaser after payment of an ordinary rental
for 20 years.