Pudding Mill Lane is a

Docklands Light Railway The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) is an automated light metro system serving the redeveloped Docklands area of London, England and provides a direct connection between London's two major financial districts, Canary Wharf and the City of Lo ...

(DLR) station in Stratford in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. It opened in 1996 on the road of the same name, once a light industrial area in Stratford, now being redeveloped into housing development called Pudding Mill Lane. It is next to the Olympic Park; however, it was closed for the duration of the

2012 Olympic Games The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

and reopened on 12 September 2012. The original island platform station was permanently closed on 18 April 2014 in order to allow for the construction of a ramp from the new

Crossrail Crossrail is a railway construction project mainly in central London. Its aim is to provide a high-frequency hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system crossing the capital from suburbs on the west to east, by connecting two major railway l ...

portal nearby. A new, larger station built a short distance to the south opened on 28 April 2014. The station is located on the DLR's Stratford to Poplar branch, between the

Bow Church Bow Church is the parish church of St Mary and Holy Trinity, Stratford, Bow. It is located on a central reservation site in Bow Road (part of the A11 road (Great Britain), A11), in Bow, London, Bow, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. There ...

and Stratford stations and is on the boundary between

Travelcard Zone 2 Fare zone 2 is an inner zone of Transport for London's zonal fare system used for calculating the price of tickets for travel on the London Underground, London Overground, Docklands Light Railway and, since 2007, on National Rail services. Ba ...

and Zone 3. Trains also run to Lewisham in the morning peaks

History

Original station

The plans for the DLR to Stratford included an option for a station at Pudding Mill Lane. Funding was not available to build the station, but the location was one of two places safeguarded for future development, the other being

Langdon Park Langdon Park may refer to: *Langdon, Washington, D.C., an area of Washington, D.C. in the United States *Langdon Park DLR station, a Docklands Light Railway station in Poplar, London, United Kingdom *Langdon Park School Langdon Park School is a ...

. Pudding Mill Lane was opened on 15 January 1996. Previously this location had been a simple passing point for trains on the otherwise single-tracked section between Stratford and Bow Church. The name of the station is taken from the nearby Pudding Mill Lane which, in turn, takes its name from the former Pudding Mill River, a minor tributary of the

River Lea The River Lea ( ) is in South East England. It originates in Bedfordshire, in the Chiltern Hills, and flows southeast through Hertfordshire, along the Essex border and into Greater London, to meet the River Thames at Bow Creek. It is one of ...

. This is believed to have taken its name from St. Thomas's Mill, a local

water mill A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production ...

shaped like a

pudding Pudding is a type of food. It can be either a dessert or a savoury (salty or spicy) dish served as part of the main meal. In the United States, ''pudding'' means a sweet, milk-based dessert similar in consistency to egg-based custards, inst ...

and commonly known as Pudding Mill. The area had also been called Knob Hill up until the 1890s. When all the other platforms on the DLR's Stratford branch were extended to accommodate three-car trains, Pudding Mill Lane remained with a two-car platform, instead using

selective door operation Selective door operation (SDO), also known as selective door opening, is a mechanism employed primarily on trains (although buses with multiple doors also generally have this feature) that allows the driver or conductor/guard to open the doors of ...

. The lack of platform extensions in this case was due to the pending rebuild of the station. During the

, Pudding Mill Lane station was temporarily closed for safety reasons as, while ideally situated to serve the Olympic site, it was far too small to cope with the probable passenger numbers. The original station closed after the last train departed at 00:47 on 17/18 April 2014, and its replacement opened on 28 April.

New station

has a tunnel portal to the east of the original Pudding Mill Lane site. The ramp from the portal to track level at Stratford station passes directly through the original Pudding Mill lane station site, thus required a replacement station to be built on a new viaduct nearby. The original station was demolished to make way for the new ramp, funded as part of the Crossrail project. This work also permitted the upgrade of the only significant stretch of single track left on the DLR to be doubled. In July 2011, Newham Council's Strategic Development Committee approved plans by architect

Weston Williamson Weston Williamson is a British architectural firm formed in 1985 and based in London, Melbourne, Sydney and Toronto. History Weston Williamson was established in 1985 by Andrew Weston and Chris Williamson, who met whilst studying architectu ...

for the new station. Sited just to the south of the old station, between the River Lea and City Mill River, it was built with a higher capacity to cope for new developments in the area. It has three-car platforms, better pedestrian links and access to buses, improved step-free access, and provision for escalators. The station was flooded after torrential rain on 25 July 2021.

References

External links

Docklands Light Railway website - Pudding Mill Lane station page

Weston Williamson Architects website - Proposed replacement for Pudding Mill Lane DLR station
{{Docklands Light Railway Docklands Light Railway stations in the London Borough of Newham Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1996 Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park Stratford, London