Cheam was an authorised railway station planned by the

Wimbledon and Sutton Railway The Wimbledon and Sutton Railway (W&SR) was a railway company established by an Act of Parliament in 1910 to build a railway line in Surrey (now south-west London) from Wimbledon to Sutton via Merton and Morden in the United Kingdom. The ra ...

(W&SR) and

Underground Electric Railways Company of London The Underground Electric Railways Company of London Limited (UERL), known operationally as the Underground for much of its existence, was established in 1902. It was the holding company for the three deep-level "tube"A "tube" railway is an und ...

(UERL) but never built. It was to be located on Cheam Road in

Sutton Sutton (''south settlement'' or ''south town'' in Old English) may refer to: Places United Kingdom England In alphabetical order by county: * Sutton, Bedfordshire * Sutton, Berkshire, a location * Sutton-in-the-Isle, Ely, Cambridgeshire * S ...

in south-west

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 ...

Plan

The station was to have been built on the W&SR's planned surface railway line in Surrey (now south-west London) from Wimbledon to

. The station was to be north of Cheam Road. The construction of the railway was approved in 1910. In 1911 the UERL agreed to provide funding for the line's construction and to operate its train services by extending the UERL's

District Railway The Metropolitan District Railway, also known as the District Railway, was a passenger railway that served London from 1868 to 1933. Established in 1864 to complete an " inner circle" of lines connecting railway termini in London, the first par ...

(DR) from

Wimbledon station Wimbledon is a National Rail, London Underground, and Tramlink station located on Wimbledon Bridge, Wimbledon in London, and is the only station in London that provides an interchange between the London Underground and Tramlink. The station ser ...

. Delays in the purchase of land along the railway's route and the outbreak of

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

prevented the works from commencing and the permission was extended several times with a final extension granted in 1922. Following the war, the UERL presented new proposals to construct an extension of the

City and South London Railway The City and South London Railway (C&SLR) was the first successful deep-level underground "tube" railway in the world, and the first major railway to use electric traction. The railway was originally intended for cable-hauled trains, but owing ...

(C&SLR, now part of the

Northern line The Northern line is a London Underground line that runs from North London to South London. It is printed in black on the Tube map. The Northern line is unique on the Underground network in having two different routes through central London, two ...

) from

Clapham Common Clapham Common is a large triangular urban park in Clapham, south London, England. Originally common land for the parishes of Battersea and Clapham, it was converted to parkland under the terms of the Metropolitan Commons Act 1878. It is of ...

Morden Morden is a district and town in south London, England, within the London Borough of Merton, in the ceremonial county of Greater London. It adjoins Merton Park and Wimbledon to the north, Mitcham to the east, Sutton to the south and Worcester ...

in tunnel where it would come to the surface and join the W&SR route. Both DR and C&SLR trains would run to Sutton. The plan to extend the C&SLR was opposed by the Southern Railway (SR), the operator of the mainline services through Wimbledon and Sutton. A settlement between the companies agreed that the extension of the C&SLR would end at

and the W&SR would be taken over and its route would be constructed by the SR. When the Wimbledon to Sutton line was constructed by the SR in the late 1920s, the nearest station to the proposed site of Cheam station was West Sutton to the north.

References

Bibliography

* * {{Closed London Underground stations Unbuilt London Underground stations Proposed London Underground stations Unbuilt tube stations in the London Borough of Sutton