25 Places with two stations: 23 Farnborough

Saturday 15th November 2025

Farnborough’s another station pair I hadn’t included in my original list for this series, thinking that with North Camp close to Farnborough Main and Farnborough North, it made for a town with three stations, rather than two. But then I was contacted a few weeks ago by the wonderful Mike Knott who invited me to pay a visit to Farnborough North and see what’s been achieved through huge community involvement at that station and when he also clarified not only is North Camp not technically in Farnborough but is located over the border in Surrey, whereas Farnborough Main and Farnborough North are in Hampshire, that changed everything.

So Tuesday saw me heading over to the town of Farnborough to take a look at what turned out to be a truly fascinating station pair visit, not least the hidden secrets of Farnborough North, of which more anon.

Let’s begin with a brief history with a few facts and figures. Both stations were confusingly called plain Farnborough until 1923 when the larger of the two became officially known as Farnborough (Main). It’s on the South Western Railway main line to Southampton and, as you can see, is still known simply as Farnborough on station signs as well as in timetables. It arrived on the scene first in 1838. With its direct trains to London Waterloo it saw 2,064,000 passengers in 2023/24.

Farnborough North (also renamed in 1923) opened 11 years after its namesake, in 1849, and was originally owned by the South Eastern and Chatham Railway. It sits on what we now call the North Downs Line (Reading-Guildford-Redhill-Gatwick Airport) operated by GWR and saw about a fifth of the passenger numbers at Farnborough (Main) with 446,000 in 2023/24, many of those being students.

Farnborough (Main)’s off-peak service provision is a half hourly stopping service between Basingstoke and London Waterloo as well as an hourly semi-fast Portsmouth Harbour to London Waterloo with an additional London bound journey per hour in the morning peak whereas Farnborough North has just an hourly service between Reading and Gatwick Airport increasing to two an hour in both peaks towards Gatwick and in the morning peak towards Reading.

As you’d expect from the foregoing, station facilities at Farnborough (Main) are much more extensive than at Farnborough North, not least the latter being an open station with no ticket office or station buildings whereas Farnborough Main has a two-window ticket office and gateline at its entrance/exit on the southbound platform 2.

But, let’s start our tour on the London bound platform 1 where there’s an accessible toilet…

… lots of traditional style bench seats…

.. an old style shelter…

… with not so comfortable bench and perch seats…

… then some more wooden bench seats…

… a rather lovely waiting room with seats looking out on to the tracks and a refreshment counter at one end…

… some sockets for the all important charging of laptops, tablets and smartphones…

… a mural with acknowledgment to the nearby airfield where the famous air show is held…

… and, best of all, a table with Karen’s 1,000 piece jigsaw, which on Tuesday was very much ‘work in progress’.

… with a request for any help to finish it off while waiting for your train.

It makes a change from the usual book library.

Back out on the platform there’s a rather interesting shaped shelter at the southern end of the platform…

… and stairs and a lift for the substantial footbridge to cross to platform 2.

This is conveniently wide…

…and sits high above the tracks offering nice views below towards London…

… and towards Southampton with the fast lines in the middle alongside the lines for stopping trains.

As already mentioned, Platform 2 is where the gate line can be found…

…but there are no shelters as it’s obviously felt the canopy is substantial enough to keep waiting passengers dry. There is an interesting shutter covering a window from the ticket office which looks permanently out of use.

Also, as already mentioned, there’s a ticket office in the foyer and there’s also a shop and two ticket machines as well as a book library.

Immediately outside three bus stops see Stagecoach’s 12-minute frequency route 1 between Aldershot and Camberley…

… once marketed as a Gold branded route, as well as less frequent routes 2, 11 and 194.

There’s a large car park which, like many on this line, has had an additional deck installed…

… and taxis and drop off/pick up spaces are also available.

The station is well looked after, thanks to hard working staff, one of whom, David, it was a pleasure to meet during my visit.

Let’s take the 15 minute walk over to Farnborough North which can be found at the end of Farnborough Street, in an area of the town also known as Farnborough Street. It’s at the end of what is a no through road although there is access to lakes through a gated level crossing (see the earlier map extract) which local fishermen use to drive across and have keys to unlock the gates to do so.

You might just be able to make out the two signs to the left of the gate which say “Footway Closed”…

… and “Pedestrians Use Footbridge”. That’s because whereas passenger access to the eastbound (Guildford bound) platform 1 had entailed crossing the tracks at this point, earlier this year a new footbridge was installed…

… which, like at Farnborough (Main) is a very substantial piece of infrastructure…

…and I understand although it’s now open for use there are some problems with the lifts so it hasn’t been officially handed over to GWR, which is the reason you might have noticed a member of staff wearing orange high-vis in the small Portacabin alongside the level crossing because until it’s officially “opened” the old arrangement of having the crossing staffed is still in place, even though there’s nothing to do.

Both platforms at Farnborough North offer a small traditional ‘bus style’ shelter and some seats but aside from a ticket machine, that’s about it for facilities.

Farnborough North proudly proclaims under its station sign it’s at “The Town’s Historic Heart”...

.. which is where the aforementioned Mike Knott comes in.

That’s Mike proudly standing in front of a banner on Platform 1 promoting Reg’s Garden. This amazing feature sits behind the Old Station Master’s House which can be found on the other side of the level crossing and Portacabin.

Both the house and garden are a truly amazing treasure trove of community involvement. I spent a fascinating hour visiting both the house and garden last Tuesday when Mike kindly briefed me about the background to the project and showed me around.

The “three up, three down” house, which is owned by Network Rail, has been occupied by a number of railway employees over the years, latterly Reginald Hutchings who was a career railwayman with British Rail, being an electrical engineer overseeing part of Southern Region’s Signal and Telegraph unit based in Woking. In 1986 he bought the land alongside the house from British Rail which on his death was bequeathed to his son and daughter.

Sadly the land became badly overgrown and the house also fell into disrepair through not being occupied for over a decade. However, Reg’s son and daughter kindly leased the land for 10 years to the Farnborough Street Residents Association of which Mike, who lives opposite the station, is chairman and more recently Network Rail has handed the Old Station Master’s House over for community use.

What is now known as Reg’s Garden was officially opened to the public in 2021 and Mike showed me a photograph of how it looked when they first took up the lease of the land…

… compared to how it looks today (looking in the same direction), thanks to the hard work and determination of a whole host of dedicated community volunteers as well as employees from some of the large employers in the town (including BMW) and students from Farnborough SIxth Form College.

Mark Hopwood and the team at GWR have also been hugely supportive of this project, including some funding, and Mark along with Lord Hendy were present when the garden was officially opened.

Take a look at how the garden now looks. It’s impressive.

The land is split into three main sections, a grassed area behind the house…

… community food farm planters…

… a wildlife area with children’s play area and a number of allotments leased to local residents…

… and an area for bee hives at the far end.

The House is in the process of being converted into a community hub. The ground floor has been decorated in the green and cream of the old Southern Railway stations with a newly installed (second hand) kitchen facility…

… a busy room where much activity takes place…

… and a third room for community meetings.

Both the rooms alongside the kitchen can be booked by local groups and on Mondays a Warm Cafė has been established…

… for local people to visit and enjoy free hot drinks, light snacks “and a chat with good company in a warm and welcoming environment”. The original front door and entrance to the house…

… the stairs…

… and the three former bedrooms upstairs are in the process of being renovated and decorated…

… with much work done but much still to be done. All by volunteers.

Back in the garden I was reassured the original stocks from the village are no longer used…

… and Mike explained on Sundays volunteers meet at 11am and stay until 1.30pm with horticulture activities and young people taking part in the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme Community section getting involved. Mike added “we also work with Community Matters Partnerships to allow companies to get involved with their Corporate Responsibility Days. Groups between 10 and 60 are the norm”. SInce July of this year 850 volunteers have been involved in the project.

Individuals can also get involved in other tasks such as planting and maintaining the many flowerbeds and helping at the Warm Cafė. A good example, Mike showed me, is a flower bed that’s recently been planted alongside Platform 1 at the station, now the footbridge work has finished, which when the plants grow and flower next summer will depict the National Rail “Double Arrow” symbol.

What a lovely touch.

The day I visited, a Tuesday, there’s a regular team of volunteers who work in the garden and while I was there a new nesting box was being installed…

… alongside another tree containing a bat box.

Mike also showed me where a third platform used to stand alongside today’s Platform 1 which was grassed over to allow army horses being transferred to and from the barracks at Aldershot to be transported by train to where they were needed in those far off distant days in the past.

Alongside this was another siding for the exclusive use of Queen Victoria when she travelled by special train to regularly visit her friend Empress Eugenie, who was married to Napoleon III and lived in the building that’s now Farnborough Hill School.

It was a fascinating visit, and Mike also kindly lent me an amazing publication put together by local historian, Mike Johnson, covering the history of Farnborough Street.

This comprehensively researched 261 page fascinating document charts the detailed history of the area from the 19th Century through to modern times and includes chapters on the station with some fantastic historic photos from which I’m including a couple here with due acknowledgment to the two Mikes.

Mike Knott and his team of volunteers have been shortlisted for a rail industry award for the great work they’re all doing. In my mind, there’s no doubt they’re sure fire winners and deservedly so too.

It proved to be the most fascinating visit to a “Place with Two Stations” in this series so far and my thanks to Mike for his time last Tuesday.

Roger French

Did you catch the 22 previous blogs in this series? 1: Hertford; 2: Canterbury. 3: Wigan, 4 Dorchester, 5 Windsor, 6 Wakefield, 7 Reddish, 8 Yeovil, 9 Newark-on-Trent, 10 New Mills, 11 Tyndrum, 12 St Albans, 13 Falkirk, 14 Catford, 15 Helensburgh, 16 Gainsborough, 17 Edenbridge, 18 Bicester, 19 Worcester, 20 Epsom and Ewell, 21 Wrexham, 22 Runcorn.

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