Sheffield Park staton, now the Bluebell Line heritage railway.
Reprinted from Danehill Parish Historical Society Magazine Volume 5 Number 6 Feb. 1996
A HISTORY OF SHEFFIELD PARK AND ITS STATION
By “ARCHIVIST”
Foreword.
The following article is reprinted in this magazine by the kind permission of the author "Archivist" and by the courtesy of Bluebell R.P.S. Archives. The article was published in "The Bluebell News" October/November 1962. Sixty two years later this article is still relevant to the study of our local history.
The Lewes to East Grinstead railway line was founded in 1882; and a station on that line ‑ Sheffield Park ‑ is now a Mecca for the thousands of people who come there for "The Bluebell line". There they can still travel on a real steam train, see the wonderful engines in the goods‑yard and go back in time to the great days of steam-travel.
Also this article gives a history of the Timber Yard adjoining the station. Started there in 1886, a century later 'Wood Industries Ltd." are on this site.
"The Mid‑Sussex Dairy Company" were on a site opposite Sheffield Park Station. In 1921 this was taken over by The Express Dairy Co., in its turn succeeded by "The Woodgate Farms Ltd.". This latter started by Mrs. Molly Sales at Woodgate Farm, Danehill, has expanded to become Woodgate Farms Dairy Ltd. and now covers Surrey, Kent and Sussex. Their Head Office and Dairy are still at Sheffield Park. (HMR)
-------------------------------------------------------------
The Lewes‑East Grinstead line had not been open more than a year before the Brighton Directors were told in no uncertain terms that "the accommodation provided for the reception and delivery of goods is insufficient there being no goods sheds at any of the stations, and at some of them there is a want of space and means of lifting heavy goods", This was not unexpected for no line could fail to be prosperous in those days of unpaved roads and slow horse transport. Goods traffic soon paid off well as the raw products of the mid‑Sussex countryside were canalised into the local railway goods yards.
The most important of these was the timber trade, but it was not for some years after the opening that Messrs. Albert Turner & Son, a firm with a lengthy record in the wooded Sussex Weald, took the decisive and logical step of transferring a sawmill first established at Nutley in 1830 to Sheffield Park in 1896 where the railway built in a special set of sidings including, according to an old station diagram, a run round loop though this has long since been taken out. This extra goods accommodation on the west side became very necessary for in 1904 the yard was averaging 50 trucks, involving two or three special timber trains a week. By 1914 the tally had fallen slightly to 4 to 5 wagons daily and the ledger account reached about £1,000 monthly, the largest on the L.B. & S.C.R. In the post-war - period a steady 8 to 10 timber wagons continued to be loaded out each day.
Turners dealt with all kinds of timber for destinations throughout the country. Indeed both sides, Turners and the station yard, were frequently at full stretch. Customers were not difficult to find; Government contracts easily claimed the bulk, the Admiralty and later the Air Ministry in particular. Considerable proportions went to the dockyards, to Deptford Wharf for the making of small craft, to the Gas Light and Coke Co., to new housing estates in south‑west London and to the railway itself. Orders for bulk timber for making walls, fences, pit‑props, etc., came in from far and wide while locally Stennings of East Grinstead specialised in buying round timber.
Apart from the regular staff at the sawmill, the despatch of the wood by rail involved a supporting cast. Timber went by measurement, not weight, and for many years a Mr. Turnbull was specially employed for measuring. Though special "checkers" were sent from time to time by the Railway Company, it was the already overworked station clerks who had to check all measurements and work out the weights and hence the charges.
A HISTORY OF SHEFFIELD PARK AND ITS STATION
By “ARCHIVIST”
Foreword.
The following article is reprinted in this magazine by the kind permission of the author "Archivist" and by the courtesy of Bluebell R.P.S. Archives. The article was published in "The Bluebell News" October/November 1962. Sixty two years later this article is still relevant to the study of our local history.
The Lewes to East Grinstead railway line was founded in 1882; and a station on that line ‑ Sheffield Park ‑ is now a Mecca for the thousands of people who come there for "The Bluebell line". There they can still travel on a real steam train, see the wonderful engines in the goods‑yard and go back in time to the great days of steam-travel.
Also this article gives a history of the Timber Yard adjoining the station. Started there in 1886, a century later 'Wood Industries Ltd." are on this site.
"The Mid‑Sussex Dairy Company" were on a site opposite Sheffield Park Station. In 1921 this was taken over by The Express Dairy Co., in its turn succeeded by "The Woodgate Farms Ltd.". This latter started by Mrs. Molly Sales at Woodgate Farm, Danehill, has expanded to become Woodgate Farms Dairy Ltd. and now covers Surrey, Kent and Sussex. Their Head Office and Dairy are still at Sheffield Park. (HMR)
-------------------------------------------------------------
The Lewes‑East Grinstead line had not been open more than a year before the Brighton Directors were told in no uncertain terms that "the accommodation provided for the reception and delivery of goods is insufficient there being no goods sheds at any of the stations, and at some of them there is a want of space and means of lifting heavy goods", This was not unexpected for no line could fail to be prosperous in those days of unpaved roads and slow horse transport. Goods traffic soon paid off well as the raw products of the mid‑Sussex countryside were canalised into the local railway goods yards.
The most important of these was the timber trade, but it was not for some years after the opening that Messrs. Albert Turner & Son, a firm with a lengthy record in the wooded Sussex Weald, took the decisive and logical step of transferring a sawmill first established at Nutley in 1830 to Sheffield Park in 1896 where the railway built in a special set of sidings including, according to an old station diagram, a run round loop though this has long since been taken out. This extra goods accommodation on the west side became very necessary for in 1904 the yard was averaging 50 trucks, involving two or three special timber trains a week. By 1914 the tally had fallen slightly to 4 to 5 wagons daily and the ledger account reached about £1,000 monthly, the largest on the L.B. & S.C.R. In the post-war - period a steady 8 to 10 timber wagons continued to be loaded out each day.
Turners dealt with all kinds of timber for destinations throughout the country. Indeed both sides, Turners and the station yard, were frequently at full stretch. Customers were not difficult to find; Government contracts easily claimed the bulk, the Admiralty and later the Air Ministry in particular. Considerable proportions went to the dockyards, to Deptford Wharf for the making of small craft, to the Gas Light and Coke Co., to new housing estates in south‑west London and to the railway itself. Orders for bulk timber for making walls, fences, pit‑props, etc., came in from far and wide while locally Stennings of East Grinstead specialised in buying round timber.
Apart from the regular staff at the sawmill, the despatch of the wood by rail involved a supporting cast. Timber went by measurement, not weight, and for many years a Mr. Turnbull was specially employed for measuring. Though special "checkers" were sent from time to time by the Railway Company, it was the already overworked station clerks who had to check all measurements and work out the weights and hence the charges.
One of the locomotives working the line
Until the Great War a team of horses was employed to draw everything in the timber yard which was centred by the Ouse to the north of the up platform, but the wartime expansion and setting up of the mechanical mill on its present site led to the yards extension up behind the old South Box right to the workers' cottages. The mill's prosperity has continued through to today in spite of the change in the method of timber transportation.
The first sign of this came with the 1926 strike which hit the mill particularly hard, necessitating the use of road transport, and unfortunately for the railway a great deal of trade stayed on the road. Crisis came in the early 'thirties over a dispute regarding the right of way at the south end of the platforms into Turner's yard, the latter threatening to use lorries and leave the railway should this be denied. The outcome was a further exodus of timber on to the roads. Only with the war and the serious petrol shortage did some traffic return to the railway.
By this time after half a century of service the railway began to have anxieties about the condition of the siding. This was not however Turner's responsibility, for though holding the ground on which the sawmill stands on a 99 years lease from the Sheffield Park Estate, under the terms of this lease it appeared that the lessors, namely the Estate, were responsible for the siding into the mill. About 1950 the railway presented an ultimatum to the Agent to the Estate, Mr. B. W. Howe, that unless he was willing to spend £300 on the siding on behalf of the Estate they would prohibit its use altogether. In view of the impending closure of the line Mr. Howe informed the District Engineer that he was not prepared to consider such an expenditure. The whole matter lapsed and the siding fell into disuse, a section of rail just inside the gate being taken out soon afterwards. Almost the
last use Mr. Howe can remember was trucks of barrel staves consigned to Burton‑on‑Trent for the manufacture of beer barrels and the last engine run on the siding was the un-rebuilt C2 No~ 2533 from Newhaven Shed which worked the daily Lewes‑Kingscote goods right up until its withdrawal in March 1950. Though the sawmill continued to prosper, blatantly divorced from the national railway system, the latter's successors are once again on the friendliest of terms and while Turner's recently erected signboards testify the firm's part in the station's history, by the white gate there is piled up a constant supply of waste wood which the Bluebell Loco Department may use for lighting up its engines.
Another long established firm, the Mid‑Sussex Dairy Co., made Sheffield Park their headquarters in the early 1890s. An efficient dairy was set up with Mr. Fred Watson from Newick as Secretary. The machinery was kept in excellent trim by Mr. Fred Bray who came over from Glynde. An efficient organisation was set up, the haphazard delivery from individual farms being replaced by the introduction specifically for this purpose of milk floats, low axied carts with a carter boy leading the front horse. To transport the large 17 gallon churns of prepared milk to the station there was set up a 2ft. gauge trolley line which ran from the back of the dairy across a special bridge of its own over the stream by the pump house to a covered shed along the rear face of the up platform. Several lines and turntables, long since removed, existed at the dairy end but the main track, though covered by grass and brambles, is still in situ except where it crossed the entrance to Turner's standard gauge siding, and some lengths are also missing by the station platform. The trolleys,' two of which can still be seen at the dairy end, had to be manhandled up the grade to the station, and many a Sheffield Park porter can remember being called in to lend his assistance. Half way up just north of the little bridge on the west side was a well used for storage and keeping the cream cool. Formerly there was a fixed winch to let the churns down into the water. Today filled up and blocked by rubble not a trace remains but many an elderly timber yard employee can still point to the site. Perhaps some future day when less work of an urgent nature is to hand, the milk trolley fine might be resurrected once again and some of our teenage visitors enter into the past once again by expending a little surplus energy in wheeling the trolleys up and down.
Besides milk cream has already been mentioned. In Brighton days one churn with a brass plate inscribed "Sheffield Park to Buckingham Palac& went daily on the 11.25 a.m. train. Needless to say the plate was zealously polished up. It has not yet been possible to trace the whereabouts of this interesting relic. Another royal contract was for Cowes Week when the cream was sent addressed "H.M. The King, Cowes". Further sidelines were butter of which 1 cwt. was made daily in 1/2 lb. pats, and Wensleydale cheese was made from the considerable quantities of sour milk left over in the summers. The Brays won First Prize for this cream cheese at dairy shows on at least two occasions.
But the railway was chiefly concerned with the milk of which about 75 large churns were taken daily up to the station platforms; £300-£400 were paid on average monthly to the Company, the carriage on a 17 gallon churn of milk to London being only l s. 2d. in 1920. The milk went chiefly to South London (Sydenham, Norwood Junction, Forest Hill, London Bridge), only a small amount going south to Brighton. Seventeen churns went on the 6 p. m. up, chiefly destined for Peak Freans biscuit factory, and platelayers were called in to help embark this load.
The first sign of this came with the 1926 strike which hit the mill particularly hard, necessitating the use of road transport, and unfortunately for the railway a great deal of trade stayed on the road. Crisis came in the early 'thirties over a dispute regarding the right of way at the south end of the platforms into Turner's yard, the latter threatening to use lorries and leave the railway should this be denied. The outcome was a further exodus of timber on to the roads. Only with the war and the serious petrol shortage did some traffic return to the railway.
By this time after half a century of service the railway began to have anxieties about the condition of the siding. This was not however Turner's responsibility, for though holding the ground on which the sawmill stands on a 99 years lease from the Sheffield Park Estate, under the terms of this lease it appeared that the lessors, namely the Estate, were responsible for the siding into the mill. About 1950 the railway presented an ultimatum to the Agent to the Estate, Mr. B. W. Howe, that unless he was willing to spend £300 on the siding on behalf of the Estate they would prohibit its use altogether. In view of the impending closure of the line Mr. Howe informed the District Engineer that he was not prepared to consider such an expenditure. The whole matter lapsed and the siding fell into disuse, a section of rail just inside the gate being taken out soon afterwards. Almost the
last use Mr. Howe can remember was trucks of barrel staves consigned to Burton‑on‑Trent for the manufacture of beer barrels and the last engine run on the siding was the un-rebuilt C2 No~ 2533 from Newhaven Shed which worked the daily Lewes‑Kingscote goods right up until its withdrawal in March 1950. Though the sawmill continued to prosper, blatantly divorced from the national railway system, the latter's successors are once again on the friendliest of terms and while Turner's recently erected signboards testify the firm's part in the station's history, by the white gate there is piled up a constant supply of waste wood which the Bluebell Loco Department may use for lighting up its engines.
Another long established firm, the Mid‑Sussex Dairy Co., made Sheffield Park their headquarters in the early 1890s. An efficient dairy was set up with Mr. Fred Watson from Newick as Secretary. The machinery was kept in excellent trim by Mr. Fred Bray who came over from Glynde. An efficient organisation was set up, the haphazard delivery from individual farms being replaced by the introduction specifically for this purpose of milk floats, low axied carts with a carter boy leading the front horse. To transport the large 17 gallon churns of prepared milk to the station there was set up a 2ft. gauge trolley line which ran from the back of the dairy across a special bridge of its own over the stream by the pump house to a covered shed along the rear face of the up platform. Several lines and turntables, long since removed, existed at the dairy end but the main track, though covered by grass and brambles, is still in situ except where it crossed the entrance to Turner's standard gauge siding, and some lengths are also missing by the station platform. The trolleys,' two of which can still be seen at the dairy end, had to be manhandled up the grade to the station, and many a Sheffield Park porter can remember being called in to lend his assistance. Half way up just north of the little bridge on the west side was a well used for storage and keeping the cream cool. Formerly there was a fixed winch to let the churns down into the water. Today filled up and blocked by rubble not a trace remains but many an elderly timber yard employee can still point to the site. Perhaps some future day when less work of an urgent nature is to hand, the milk trolley fine might be resurrected once again and some of our teenage visitors enter into the past once again by expending a little surplus energy in wheeling the trolleys up and down.
Besides milk cream has already been mentioned. In Brighton days one churn with a brass plate inscribed "Sheffield Park to Buckingham Palac& went daily on the 11.25 a.m. train. Needless to say the plate was zealously polished up. It has not yet been possible to trace the whereabouts of this interesting relic. Another royal contract was for Cowes Week when the cream was sent addressed "H.M. The King, Cowes". Further sidelines were butter of which 1 cwt. was made daily in 1/2 lb. pats, and Wensleydale cheese was made from the considerable quantities of sour milk left over in the summers. The Brays won First Prize for this cream cheese at dairy shows on at least two occasions.
But the railway was chiefly concerned with the milk of which about 75 large churns were taken daily up to the station platforms; £300-£400 were paid on average monthly to the Company, the carriage on a 17 gallon churn of milk to London being only l s. 2d. in 1920. The milk went chiefly to South London (Sydenham, Norwood Junction, Forest Hill, London Bridge), only a small amount going south to Brighton. Seventeen churns went on the 6 p. m. up, chiefly destined for Peak Freans biscuit factory, and platelayers were called in to help embark this load.
In Brighton days good relations existed between the railway staff, dairy and the local community. Typical of this was the incident concerning the Girls Heritage Craft Schools whose crippled children, breaking up for the holidays, either walked to Sheffield Park Station or were taken in relays by a car hired by Mrs. Kimmins from Mr. Endersby at the Kings Head; the luggage was brought in on the Heritage donkey cart. This was a lengthy operation which lasted from 7 a.m. till shortly before the arrival of the 8,39 a,m. London train. Hot milk was served to all the children in the waiting room for which Mr. C. W. Skinner, the Station Master, who had paid for the milk, himself received a letter of thanks from Mrs. Kimmins.
The decline of the carriage of milk by rail took much the same course as the transport of timber had done. First in 1926 the Mid‑Sussex was bought out by the Express Dairy Co., who took over the lease, then the General Strike resulted in milk being taken away in lorries, and this was followed by friction with the new Station Master, The fate of the special milk siding which trails off by the water tower and with the recently laid inspection pit has come in so useful to the Bluebell locomotives, had something to do with the final rift. The Southern Railway refused to maintain the siding, the Express Dairy apparently were unwilling to install a lift after £2,000 had been spent on new machinery, and the issue was settled when the dairy was suddenly closed down in 1933, by which time milk carriage by rail was down to a mere trickle The dairy buildings were used as Insurance offices during the period of the Second World War and remained derelict till the Express Dairy Co. were persuaded to surrender the remainder of their lease, and in 1951 the premises were sold to Woodgate Farms Dairy Ltd, Today the dairy is once more on its feet with a fine fleet of milk vans and the Bluebell Railway caterers are among the regular customers.
To simplify matters it will best serve the purpose if the remaining types of goods are classified as either in‑coming or out‑going. Of the latter fruit produce was probably the next most important asset. Large quantities of gooseberries originated from Chelwood Gate, two to three tons daily were in the early 'twenties loaded on to the 6.3 p.m. up train which was allowed a five minute wait. Other loads went to Brighton and Eastbourne. Farm produce came next with a brisk cattle traffic, horse boxes in regular use, and on special occasions cattle trains were run to Lewes, Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings. Pigs sent every Monday to Lewes market on the 10.3 a.m. train were another regular feature. Of hay, seven or eight trucks would go out of a day if harvest had been good, Nightingales of Crawley and Lillicos of Croydon having large consignments. Maize, grain and dairy cake came from Newnhams of Danehill, and a steady flow of bean and pea sticks and particularly toy poles was sent through the railway by Ben Newman, a local woodman. As late
as 1942 a new concern, Passavants and Co. Ltd., set up at the river end of the timber yard and, dealing in rabbit skins, sent their unusual cargo by rail. For a brief period from 1949 to 1952 the Sheffield Park Estate grew sugar beet. This was loaded from the dock adjoining the down platform and was probably the last outwards traffic in full truckloads from Sheffield Park.
The incoming goods presented an even odder assortment. Building materials, very difficult to transport by road, arrived for the East Sussex local councils and contractors., flints from Portslade and Midsomer Norton, roadstone (Kentish rag) from Maidstone, road granite and bricks from the Midlands came in by the truckful. Tools of all kinds came in for the farmers who also ordered manure in bulk for their strawberry crops. Thirty‑two bags of flour came in a day for Newnhams. Livestock was seasonal. At the end of September and staying the winter till March would come 30 to 40 trucks of young sheep from the Romney Marsh in Kent. Cattle arrived from Scotland too. Cattle feeding stuffs and oil cakes arrived by rail, coal regularly of course, and one or two gigantic blocks of salt arrived to keep the neighbourhood well stocked each year, an arrangement which continued till about 1930. In the pre‑1914 period the goods yard was often full to capacity and there were times when no wagons could be accepted straightaway.
Sheffield Park was also the carrier centre for a wide area stretching as far as Nutley and Chelwood Gate. The local merchants provided their own carriers, Joe Martin for Retching, A. H. Rayward for Furners Green, George Martin for Chailey, Simeon Wickens for Danehill and T. W. Freelands for Nutley to mention only a few well known local tradesmen of their day who drew their goods straight out of the yard. One who was permanently ensconced there was W. Stevenson of Retching who ran a coal business and had a wharf at the station up by the crane. There also used to be north of the cattle bay a covered goods shed. The date of the latter's removal is not certain.
The station was served by the daily Lewes‑Kingscote goods train which passed on its way up at 10 o'clock taking care only to pick up the loaded trucks on the way back around 2 p.m. It provided some amusing antics for on its way up with a load of sometimes up to 40 wagons (the maximum) out of Lewes, a stop at Sheffield Park was often fraught with difficulties. Wise engine men would back out of the goods yard and reversing again shunt the whole train up past the road bridge before running forward again gathering speed through the station to take a running swing at the rising curve past the girder bridge. The return journey if the train was at full length again presented some interesting shunting problems.
And now to the 64,000 dollar question as to who did all the work. Apart from the local carriers who did their own collecting and delivery the greater burden of the work devolved upon the station staff. The porters had regular turns in the goods yard but by far the hardest worked were the clerks, two until 1926 when Sheffield Park had one full time and one shared three days with Newick and Chailey. They were at it 7.20 a.m. to 8.30 p.m. with a break for mid‑afternoon tea in the years before 1914; in the 1920's the hours were 8.15 a.m. to 6.15 p.m., but often working beyond 7 p.m. They not only had to issue and collect tickets, and being a full Post Office (Head District below Lewes) accept parcels, issue postal orders, prepare mail bags for the 2 p,m. and 6 p.m. trains, sealing and stamping the bags and dealing with the telegraph and telegrams, they had also to weigh, book up and bill in duplicate goods sent by passenger trains, tackle passenger and parcel accounts, invoices and miscellaneous returns, and to keep an alert eye for bills that had been frequently confused with Sheffield, Yorks. Further they had as previously mentioned to deal with the timber and, to cap it all, were still expected to help out in the yard loading fruit or baling hay when required. But there were no grumbles, for the attitude to and standard of work in those days was high. All was carried through quietly and efficiently, straight on time with no messing about. There were few mistakes for suspension could result and new work was not always so easy to obtain. There was the spirit of keenness generally so absent in the railway service nowadays.
The decline of the carriage of milk by rail took much the same course as the transport of timber had done. First in 1926 the Mid‑Sussex was bought out by the Express Dairy Co., who took over the lease, then the General Strike resulted in milk being taken away in lorries, and this was followed by friction with the new Station Master, The fate of the special milk siding which trails off by the water tower and with the recently laid inspection pit has come in so useful to the Bluebell locomotives, had something to do with the final rift. The Southern Railway refused to maintain the siding, the Express Dairy apparently were unwilling to install a lift after £2,000 had been spent on new machinery, and the issue was settled when the dairy was suddenly closed down in 1933, by which time milk carriage by rail was down to a mere trickle The dairy buildings were used as Insurance offices during the period of the Second World War and remained derelict till the Express Dairy Co. were persuaded to surrender the remainder of their lease, and in 1951 the premises were sold to Woodgate Farms Dairy Ltd, Today the dairy is once more on its feet with a fine fleet of milk vans and the Bluebell Railway caterers are among the regular customers.
To simplify matters it will best serve the purpose if the remaining types of goods are classified as either in‑coming or out‑going. Of the latter fruit produce was probably the next most important asset. Large quantities of gooseberries originated from Chelwood Gate, two to three tons daily were in the early 'twenties loaded on to the 6.3 p.m. up train which was allowed a five minute wait. Other loads went to Brighton and Eastbourne. Farm produce came next with a brisk cattle traffic, horse boxes in regular use, and on special occasions cattle trains were run to Lewes, Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings. Pigs sent every Monday to Lewes market on the 10.3 a.m. train were another regular feature. Of hay, seven or eight trucks would go out of a day if harvest had been good, Nightingales of Crawley and Lillicos of Croydon having large consignments. Maize, grain and dairy cake came from Newnhams of Danehill, and a steady flow of bean and pea sticks and particularly toy poles was sent through the railway by Ben Newman, a local woodman. As late
as 1942 a new concern, Passavants and Co. Ltd., set up at the river end of the timber yard and, dealing in rabbit skins, sent their unusual cargo by rail. For a brief period from 1949 to 1952 the Sheffield Park Estate grew sugar beet. This was loaded from the dock adjoining the down platform and was probably the last outwards traffic in full truckloads from Sheffield Park.
The incoming goods presented an even odder assortment. Building materials, very difficult to transport by road, arrived for the East Sussex local councils and contractors., flints from Portslade and Midsomer Norton, roadstone (Kentish rag) from Maidstone, road granite and bricks from the Midlands came in by the truckful. Tools of all kinds came in for the farmers who also ordered manure in bulk for their strawberry crops. Thirty‑two bags of flour came in a day for Newnhams. Livestock was seasonal. At the end of September and staying the winter till March would come 30 to 40 trucks of young sheep from the Romney Marsh in Kent. Cattle arrived from Scotland too. Cattle feeding stuffs and oil cakes arrived by rail, coal regularly of course, and one or two gigantic blocks of salt arrived to keep the neighbourhood well stocked each year, an arrangement which continued till about 1930. In the pre‑1914 period the goods yard was often full to capacity and there were times when no wagons could be accepted straightaway.
Sheffield Park was also the carrier centre for a wide area stretching as far as Nutley and Chelwood Gate. The local merchants provided their own carriers, Joe Martin for Retching, A. H. Rayward for Furners Green, George Martin for Chailey, Simeon Wickens for Danehill and T. W. Freelands for Nutley to mention only a few well known local tradesmen of their day who drew their goods straight out of the yard. One who was permanently ensconced there was W. Stevenson of Retching who ran a coal business and had a wharf at the station up by the crane. There also used to be north of the cattle bay a covered goods shed. The date of the latter's removal is not certain.
The station was served by the daily Lewes‑Kingscote goods train which passed on its way up at 10 o'clock taking care only to pick up the loaded trucks on the way back around 2 p.m. It provided some amusing antics for on its way up with a load of sometimes up to 40 wagons (the maximum) out of Lewes, a stop at Sheffield Park was often fraught with difficulties. Wise engine men would back out of the goods yard and reversing again shunt the whole train up past the road bridge before running forward again gathering speed through the station to take a running swing at the rising curve past the girder bridge. The return journey if the train was at full length again presented some interesting shunting problems.
And now to the 64,000 dollar question as to who did all the work. Apart from the local carriers who did their own collecting and delivery the greater burden of the work devolved upon the station staff. The porters had regular turns in the goods yard but by far the hardest worked were the clerks, two until 1926 when Sheffield Park had one full time and one shared three days with Newick and Chailey. They were at it 7.20 a.m. to 8.30 p.m. with a break for mid‑afternoon tea in the years before 1914; in the 1920's the hours were 8.15 a.m. to 6.15 p.m., but often working beyond 7 p.m. They not only had to issue and collect tickets, and being a full Post Office (Head District below Lewes) accept parcels, issue postal orders, prepare mail bags for the 2 p,m. and 6 p.m. trains, sealing and stamping the bags and dealing with the telegraph and telegrams, they had also to weigh, book up and bill in duplicate goods sent by passenger trains, tackle passenger and parcel accounts, invoices and miscellaneous returns, and to keep an alert eye for bills that had been frequently confused with Sheffield, Yorks. Further they had as previously mentioned to deal with the timber and, to cap it all, were still expected to help out in the yard loading fruit or baling hay when required. But there were no grumbles, for the attitude to and standard of work in those days was high. All was carried through quietly and efficiently, straight on time with no messing about. There were few mistakes for suspension could result and new work was not always so easy to obtain. There was the spirit of keenness generally so absent in the railway service nowadays.