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The Hellingly Hospital Railway was a light railway owned and operated by East Sussex County Council, used for transporting coal and passengers to Hellingly Hospital, a psychiatric hospital near Hailsham, from the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway's Cuckoo Line at Hellingly railway station. The railway was constructed in 1899 and opened to passengers on 20 July 1903, following its electrification in 1902. After the railway grouping of 1923, passenger numbers declined so significantly that the hospital authorities no longer considered passenger usage of the line to be economical, and that service was withdrawn. The railway closed to freight in 1959, following the hospital's decision to convert its coal boilers to oil, which rendered the railway unnecessary. The route took a mostly direct path from a junction immediately south of Hellingly Station, past Farm and Park House Sidings, stopping places to load and unload produce and supplies from outbuildings of the hospital. Much of the railway has been converted to footpath, and many of the buildings formerly served by the line are now abandoned. ==Construction and opening== In 1897, East Sussex County Council purchased of land at Park Farm, about three miles (5 km) north of Hailsham, from the Earl of Chichester, to be the site of a new county lunatic asylum that became Hellingly Hospital.〔Reflecting changing attitudes to, and terminology within, the field of psychiatric medicine, the hospital went through multiple renamings in its lifetime. Known as the County Lunatic Asylum prior to opening, it was opened in 1903 as the East Sussex County Asylum. On 28 June 1919 it was renamed the East Sussex Mental Hospital. Following the nationalisation of the health service in 1948, the formal name gradually declined in usage, and by the time of the closure of the main hospital building in 1990 it was always referred to as Hellingly Hospital. The name "Hellingly Hospital" was used informally (and in semi-official material such as staff publications) throughout the existence of the hospital, and the railway line was known as the "Hellingly Hospital Railway" from the outset.〕 Construction work on the hospital began in 1900, to the design of George Thomas Hine,〔 Retrieved on 20 June 2008.〕 who had designed the nearby Haywards Heath Asylum. Building materials were transported to the site by a mile (2 km) standard gauge private siding from the goods yard at Hellingly railway station on the Cuckoo Line. The connection was built by the asylum's builders, Joseph Howe & Company, and was authorised by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSCR) on condition that East Sussex Council paid the cost, estimated at £1,700. A small wooden platform was built at Hellingly railway station, opposite the main line platform. This had no connection to the station buildings and was used only for the transfer of passengers between main-line and hospital trains, and kept chained off when not in use. Coal yards and sidings were also built at Hellingly station. The hospital opened to patients, and the railway to passengers, on 20 July 1903. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hellingly Hospital Railway」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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