Box Hill and West Humble Station

This station was created at the insistence of Thomas Grissell, who was a highly successful building and railway contractor in the early years of Queen Victoria's reign.

Grissell's partner was his cousin Samuel Morton Peto, who married his sister Mary. The partnership - Grissell and Peto - built up a rapidly growing business, by horizontally integrating all parts of the construction business operations from stone-quarrying to the manufacture of fittings for their buildings.

They built Birmingham Grammar School (with Charles Barry as architect), and a number of prestigious buildings in London, including Nelson's Column; the Reform Club, the Oxford and Cambridge Club, Clerkenwell Prison and the Lyceum Theatre.

The firm then moved into railway building, including lengths of the Great Western Railway and the South Eastern Railway. Grissell dissolved the partnership in 1846. not liking the riskiness of railway building. He had contracts for work building the Houses of Parliament, with Charles Barry as architect, but fell into a dispute over the pricing of some of the refined craftwork.

This station at Box Hill was constructed at the insistence of Thomas Grissell, who owned Norbury Park nearby, in part compensation for the railway cutting across his land.

The main building was designed by Charles Henry Driver in what is known as the Châteauesque style and includes these steeply pitched roofs with patterned tiles and a wonderful ornamental turret topped with a decorative grille and weather vane.

Grissell also obtained the right from the LBSCR to stop any train on request, a privilege subsequently exercised by Leopold Salomons, who purchased Norbury Park in 1890. Alas this concession was legally abolished by the Transport Act of 1962.