Abyssinia Road, SW11

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Clapham Junction

Clapham Junction railway station is a major transport hub in Battersea.

Clapham Junction is on both the South Western main line and Brighton main line as well as numerous other routes and branch lines passing through or diverging from the main lines at this station. Despite its name, Clapham Junction is not located in Clapham, a district situated approximately 1 mile to the south-east.

On 21 May 1838, the London and South Western Railway (L&SWR) and opened its line from Nine Elms as far as Woking. A second line, initially from Nine Elms to Richmond, opened on 27 July 1846. The line to Victoria opened by 1860. Clapham Junction opened on 2 March 1863, a joint venture of the L&SWR, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway and the West London Extension Railway as an interchange station for their lines.

The railway companies, to attract a middle- and upper-class clientele, calculated that being upon the slopes of Clapham’s plateau would deserve the ’Clapham’ name, leading to a long-lasting misunderstanding that the station is in Clapham rather than Battersea.

Each day more than 2000 trains, over half of them stopping, pass through the station, more than through any other station in Europe. Interchanges make some 40% of the activity and on that basis, it is the busiest station in the UK.