The Booking Office
Step through the front door and turn left, and you’ll find yourself in the Booking Office—a place where journeys truly began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Imagine standing at the polished wooden counter as a uniformed clerk greets you. Perhaps you’re here to purchase a ticket to London, or maybe to arrange a grander journey—onward by ferry from Newhaven to Dieppe, or even all the way to Paris.
But tickets were only part of the story. This was the beating heart of the railway, where you could:
- Post letters and parcels through the railway’s own postal system
- Arrange delivery of goods by rail and horse-drawn cart
- Book a room in a railway hotel
- Organise the transport of almost anything—up to and including the contents of an entire farm… or even an elephant!
Entrance hall zone highlights
Behind the counter, clerks leafed through heavy tariff books, calculating the correct charges for every service. With the telegraph and telephone at their fingertips—long before such conveniences reached local communities—the Booking Office also served as a vital communications hub. If you needed to send a message to the next village, this was the place to do it.
In the Booking Office, the railway world came together: travel, trade, communication, and adventure, all beginning with a conversation at the window.
