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The genesis of the Croydon, Merstham & Godstone Railway was a plan to build a canal from the Thames to the British Navy yard at Portsmouth. This would allow supplies and men to be transported between the two locations without hindrance from hostile French Navy vessels in the English Channel. The plan was to extend the Surrey Canal, which ran from Rotherhithe to Croydon. However, the Surrey Canal faced serious water shortages, and any extension to it would suffer from the same problem. The practical solution was to extend the Surrey Iron Railway towards the coast, the first part of which was to be the Croydon, Merstham & Godstone Railway. The next phase was to be a further extension as far as Reigate, a map for which is in the Surrey History Centre, but this extension was never built. 
Plaque at Quality Street, Merstham, in 1984. As with the Surrey Iron Railway, the engineer for the Croydon, Merstham & Godstone Railway was William Jessop. An Act of parliament authorising the line was passed in 1803 and the double track line was completed in 1805, terminating at quarries near Merstham. The line closed in 1837 (or 1838 according to some sources). The planned canal route from the Thames to Portsmouth never came to fruition, despite the plans to complete it as a plateway. The Surrey Canal closed and much of it became the trackbed of the London & Croydon Railway. The canal basin at Croydon was filled in and is today the site of West Croydon station. Tramway Road in Croydon was renamed and is today Church Road. 
Example plate on display in Quality Street, Merstham, in 1984. Following the advent of the steam railway locomotive it was not long before the promoters of the London & Brighton Railway proposed to use land belonging to the Croydon, Merstham & Godstone Railway, the purchase occurred in 1837 or 1838. 
Example track on display in Quality Street, Merstham, in 1984 Much of the line's earthworks can be traced between Purley and Merstham, including a small overbridge. Little remains of the limestone quarry area at Merstham due to the construction there of the M25 motorway. 
Example track on display in Quality Street, Merstham, in 1984 A section of track is on display in the Rotary Field, Purley, and another is in a small public garden in Quality Street, Merstham (near the original route, but not on it). 
Preserved track at Quality Street, Merstham, 27th December 1988. 
Example track on display in Quality Street, Merstham, in 1984. The Croydon, Merstham & Godstone Railway was an extension to the Surrey Iron Railway. |
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