Gorleston-on-Sea railway station (GOSH plaque)

The Gorleston-on-Sea Railway Station was opened in July 1903 with, apparently, no ceremony. However, there was controversy and there were objections before work even started. The owners of property in and developers of the Cliff Park Estate plus Avondale, Clarence and Park Roads all objected to the Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Railway’s plans because those roads were originally planned to have direct access onto Lowestoft Road, so not only were some property owners likely to lose land but they claimed that their properties would lose value because of the loss of direct access onto the London trunk road (Lowestoft Road).

However, permission was granted and the railway line along the coast connecting Great Yarmouth to Lowestoft was constructed. The sequence of stations, not all of them operational for the whole of the life of the line, was Great Yarmouth Southtown, Gorleston North, Gorleston-on-Sea, Gorleston Links, Hopton-on-Sea, Corton, Lowestoft North and Lowestoft Central. Many older residents of Gorleston will remember making regular use of this line to travel to either Lowestoft or Great Yarmouth at which it was, of course, possible to change to main and branch lines in order to conveniently travel to most places in Norfolk and Suffolk or direct to London Liverpool Street.

As a result of the Third Schedule of the Transport Act 1947, the London North Eastern Railway, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway and the Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Railway were all transferred on 1st January 1948 into the ownership of British Railways British Railways proposed the closure of passenger services at Gorleston-on-Sea station but in response to protests reinstated a limited service. At some time in the 1960s the station was reduced from two to one operational platform. Freight service at Gorleston-on-Sea was discontinued in July 1967, just 64 years after the station first opened, and passenger services were terminated shortly after that, in May 1970. The site of the station is now approximately that of the major roundabout that forms the junction of the A47 dual carriageway relief road and Victoria Road. A feature of the Gorleston-on-Sea station was the extensive goods yard and carriage sidings which, on occasion, contained the Holiday Camps Express carriages. The station was ideally situated to serve the many boarding houses and hotels at the south end of Gorleston; not least of which was The Station Hotel, now Station House.