What's so bad about Berrylands (apart from the smell)? 

Wow, that station building looks like the *temporary* classroom I spent my junior school years in.

"11 minutes late. Excess smell at Berrylands!"

They were going to shut the sewage works down but the local politicians poo pooed that idea.

Jago, you are not old. I can prove I'm old - when trying to enter my date of birth on a website, it takes me twenty minutes to scroll down to the appropriate year... 😭

0:29 Birmingham New Street is just a shopping mall with a railway station somewhere inside.

Having lived in Hersham for 10 years of my misspent childhood, and regularly taken the train to London, Berrylands always fascinated me. The reason? To start with, as Jago points out, no train I was ever on stopped there! But also, because it looks uncannily like Hersham - same temporary looking wooden platform, extended by concrete, same unimportant feel, but, most of all, same sewage works! Although ours didn't smell for some reason. But I spent ten years looking out of train windows, as we sped through a station that looked uncannily like my own stop, but which no trains ever appeared to stop at. And, almost certainly, the one London region station I NEVER expected to see covered on this channel!

an episode of 1970s tv comedy programme, George and mildred was filmed in berrylands, when george broke his leg sat in his wheel chair ,sat outside the newsagents on Chiltern drive, the newsagents is now Berry nails,

Another stinking good video. You are the circle to our drains.

Thank you Jago. I lived in Berrylands for 12 years, commuting daily from Berrylands station. For the most part the stink wasnt that bad, and the railway service good until the franchise changed to Southwestern Trains, and it literally went go blazes overnight. You missed my old flat in the video, but it was lovely to see my old road, and more importantly the green spaces along the Hogsmill. For what it's worth, those are well worth exploring

My memory of living at the uni halls of residence at the end of Burney Avenue in Surbiton decades back was that we were under 500m from Berrylands station, but because there was no access (except for climbing over the cemetary walls) with the walk via Lower Marsh lane being rather circuitous, we used Suburbiton station nearly 3 times the distance and up a hill. A quick look at the online OS map reveals not much has changed over the years. The pong? After a while you got used to it.

"You've probably never heard of Berrylands, so thank you for clicking on this video." Joke's on you, Jago, I'm a Yank, I don't know the Bakerloo Line from the District Line

"Things (regarding the smell) are no where near as bad as they uses to be". I cycle past this every week day, living in Surbiton and working in New Malden. The smell is horrid. I changed my route due to it being so bad it would literally (and I mean literally) make me sick. I'm not particularly strong stomached, but at the same time, I honestly cannot even imagine how bad it was, if it's still as terrible as it is. Love the video though. Its really nice to watch something so specifically local that gives me further knowledge on the history of somewhere like this. Growing up around South (central) London, working in the city at times and now being further out in South West of London, i get so much from most of your videos and they are a joy to watch. Keep doing what you're doing.

Very many years ago I used to live in south-west London and used the rail services around there. My late wife and I met on our first day at a civil service office in the area. In those early years we worked in places like Hinchley Wood/Thames Ditton, Chessington, Central London, New Malden and Basingstoke, and lived at locations in Wimbledon, Raynes Park, Tolworth and Woking. Of course we visited other places such as Kingston, Richmond, Guildford and Hampton Court to shop, look round or meet friends. For this reason I was interested to see this video on Berrylands which in some years we passed though every day, even if the trains didn’t stop - though possibly in those days it may not only have been the Hampton Court trains which stopped there. So, very good to see it all again in this and other videos - and more so since nowadays I go back to the general area to see my daughter in Teddington (nearest stations Fulwell and Teddington). But (sorry, more of my life story) I was born and brought up in Birmingham and now live in Leamington Spa, and you mentioned New Street station, moreover in a disparaging manner. How come? It is true that the platforms are crowded, dangerously narrow, dingy and very noisy. But that’s because naturally everyone wants to go to Birmingham and there’s no room for expansion so there’s little to be done about it. However, the bit on top (called Grand Central for some reason) is bustling, light and airy and, best of all, has the wonderful mechanical bull. It’s far better than the dismal shopping centre that it replaced. That itself replaced an earlier station which I only remember in its post-war dirty and run-down persona. Anyway, thanks again for the video and I hope Crossrail 2 happens.

the key to stations like that is timing use to days when the wind isn’t blowing the fumes towards the station…learned that while enduring low tide and sewage while awaiting buses in my former hometown

So, CLASP builds are a grown-up form of Bayko Building set, and yes I had one many many years ago.

I used to ride through Berrylands from September 1948 to December 1954 on the way to school at Surbiton Then there were three trains an hour in each direction, all stations from Waterloo to Hampton Court, head code 'H'if I rmember correctly. The teatment beds were all open and boy, did it stink in the summer.

That station building sends shivers down my spine. Having spent two out of four years in junior school and four out of five years in secondary school holed up in those CLASP boxes - freeezing cold and draughty and worse in the winter, with inadequate, fume-belching heaters and leaking roofs - I can vouch for how horrible they are.

I live next to what I'd describe as the "sister station" to Berrylands: Hersham. It looks like what Berrylands used to before the CLASP rebuild. It used to have a ticket office, waiting room and toilets each side at platform level those are all now shuttered up. The wooden back wall was removed and they put metal railings in its place, so now the wind howls through it in winter. They built a new ticket office at road level in the 1990s, upgrading the lighting and put asphalt squares down on top of the wooden platforms, but it's still essentially the original wooden station. Less smelly than Berrylands, but potentially even more boring. Also desperately in need of accessibility improvements. Unfortunately we'll miss out on Crossrail 2, but we may become zone 6 in the near future.

I used to love the smell of Berrylands on a hot summer's day when the sewage works weren't kicking up a stink. All you could smell was the sweet smell of what I presume was Bitumen they used to coat the platform in

I don't know why, but the "Also to Guildford" Tag @ around 1:10 is just too funny for some reason

Very dull fact about Berrylands. When my dad took a train into London on the portsmouth line with his Senior Citizens travelcard incorporated into the ticket, the ticket office would always break the journey at... Berrylands. for some reason. Maybe it's the first station inside the TFL area? Great video thanks

I used to work for a dairy company in Berrylands. I have fond memories of that place and of the station. I always loved the name.

Smell! My last home in the UK was in Ipswich. Certain times of the year we had the smell of the sugar beat factory.

I grew up in a neighborhood on a few low hills above a valley that included the city sewage treatment plant. The sanitary sewers were carefully designed (though with some long stretches of elevated concrete pipes with a gentle but adequate slope to them) to minimize pumping and have as much sewage as possible arrive by gravity, including some waste from factories processing corn and soybeans into various things, some nominally edible. This waste might have made the sewage processing more smelly than it might otherwise have been. I’m told it’s less smelly now, and the east side of town is where the factory smells still are. 501 Dipper Lane, Decatur, Illinois USA is the address of the Sanitary District and at least very close to the treatment plant. Dipper Lane is named for a past owner of the land. Have an online view of the area! It’s the valley of the Sangamon River and some tributaries like Stevens Creek.

Least favourite station, based on an embarrassing mistake on my part back in the days of British Rail. I worked for them, and had a staff pass, which was about to come in really handy on this particular day. It was Newton Abbot. I realised, after boarding my train at Plymouth, that I had left my keys on top of my grandmother's fridge. It was a Sunday, and I had to wait ages to return to Plymouth and wait ages more for a Tamar Valley line train to Bere Alston, where my Gran lived. Unhappy at my own mistake, I eventually caught the returning train from Gunnislake at Bere Alston, returned back to Plymouth to catch the next train to Reading, then onwards to Wokingham, where my car was parked. Long day. I have an irrational dislike of Newton Abbot station to this day.

I wait at this godawful station every morning. I detest it. It feels like it'll collapse if someone walks too hard.

I commute to New Street, and quite like it. Then again, I say commute, but it's only one return trip per week.

Two trains an hour in each direction? Luxury!

If a train is on fire, it's not allowed to stop at Berrylands; the platforms are still made of wood.

I like a nice 1930's suburb, a 1930's pub is even better, some truly gorgeous buildings .

I'm so old I used the student halls at Clayhill when it was for the polytechnic. Railway to the south, graveyard to the north, treatment works to the east - what a location. One January morning I went outside and it was misty...you could *taste* it...

Well, my reason for disliking Berrylands is that when I worked on that patch, if we were accessing the track there, it was a hell of a slog carrying all of the gear up the stairs. One interesting thing (well, perspective required on use of that word, it could have come from the same AI that found it "amazing") just Surbiton side on the up roads there is a fairly high speed turn out which if memory serves goes up slow to up fast and I think is probably about as long a set of switches that you'll find on Wessex... As I said, the use of "interesting" needs to be taken in perspective.

You get a great view of Hogsmill Nature Reserve from the London-bound platform. Take some binoculars and do some bird watching while you wait for your train.

I reckon they used that building system to build Kidbrooke in South London on the Bexleyheath Line.

I have to say I have very fond memories of Berrylands. As a north London boy it’s not an area I should know, but playing Saturday football once a season our team would travel over by train to play at the Kings college football ground, and then after enjoy a few pints at Woodies pub.

The Thames Down link is a walking route that goes from Kingston to Box Hill, which I did a few weeks back. It goes right through Berrylands, and can confirm it's a bit whiffy!

OLD JOKE: "Kiss her where it smells. Take her to...(name local spot here)"

You think trains stop infrequently at Berrylands? It's a veritable King's Cross-esque hive of activity compared to Buckenham and Berney Arms in Norfolk.

As someone who lives in New Malden I wish they would increase the frequency of stopping trains, I very rarely get of at Berrylands but those 2 trains an hour are also the only 2 trains going from New Malden to Surbiton.

Ah, my home station (when I was a lad). Spent much time in the 1960s on those platforms waiting for the slow train to/from Hampton Court. To be fair it did pong a bit but I always viewed the sewage works themselves as part of Kingston which rather unfairly chose to inflict their smelliness on us Berrylandsians instead of themselves. Looking over at the works from the Waterloo bound platform there was a narrow gauge railway than ran through the site although back in the '60s it was very rusty and I never saw anything running on it so I guess it had been out of use for some time even back then. No trace of it remains today and that part of the site is no longer in use for water treatment.

I live approximately 200 miles north of Berrylands, but I visited it a few years ago after seeing it in a John Rogers video and thought it was great. I liked the parade of shops. I know I should seek help.

2:02 ah the Prescott Hill Climb, spent a couple of great days there when I was at uni down the road in Cheltenham. When the vintage cars are going up the climb and with the steam trains of the Gloucestershire Warwickshire railway running up the valley it felt like being in a different time! I assume you also visited the railway?

Interesting to see that they have benches for people to sit on rather than stools. 😂

I lived above one of the shops across from Berrylands station in the late 1950s and commuted to school in London. At that time it did not smell and it did not have that ugly extension. The commute however was awful and always crowded.

Berrylands station does need a massive upgrade including a new station entrance and step-free access. The station looks really old compare to the other stations across Southwest London.

‘Wimbledon was just bonkers’ made me crack up 😂

I always find it weird when said obscure railway is very near to me and seen most places in the video irl

It’s annoying at berrylands when a whole sports team try boarding a train through a single set of doors.

I passed through on my visit to Hampton Court a month ago (the first in a series of visits to my Old Person's Freedom Pass Train Limits) but didn't notice the smell, nor indeed, the station. A fun station to visit (sarcasm) is Knockholt. There's very little there and it's two and a half miles away from Knockholt village, which is in two parts, a five minute very infrequent bus ride apart.

Ahhhhh Berrylands. Used to have a notable cake shop

Jago, another fabulous video. Thank you. Your video made me remember an oddity I've noticed while in the area around the Kingston bypass and Chessington, but not around Surbiton or Berrylands... Take a look at the front elevation of the houses which front onto the A3 along the run between new Malden junction and the Hook junction, and you'll see many MANY examples of houses which have multiple sets of air vent thingies, generally two side by side at floor level, and then two more at ceiling level. Most rooms in these houses seem to have these 4 vent structures. I've never yet worked out what these are for. I can only think they're some remnant of a gas fired radiator installation or something, but nobody has ever been able to tell me if I'm right. If you're interested, let me know and I'll get you some pictures.

Berrylands sounds like something out of a fairy tale, where lovely juicy thirst quenching, life giving fruits burst forth from the land, ripe to be picked as is your whim. Not somewhere where a major sewage plant is located. Bit like Iceland/Greenland.

Ha, I had to use Berrylands once about 15 years ago. must have been out of the height of summer as don't recall a bad smell. I do recall that I had to walk what seemed like forever to get to where I needed to go. One boring road looking very much like the next. Perhaps your video with cause some excitement to the residents, lord knows they need it.

Kingston has great shopping. Surbiton has fast trains in and out of London, but south from there, it's very dull. Miles of thirties bay-windowed semis, from Berrylands, through Malden Manor, Worcester Park, Motspur Park, out to Chessington and Ewell.

I used it in the mid to late 80s as LSE’s sports ground was nearby. Watching the SW Main line’s rush hour service (about a train every 2.5 mins) running at full speed with signals turning green as the trains approached was always fun; as was listening to the Class 50 hauled Exeter trains.

Polsloe Bridge in Exeter is just like this station, without any street level station, far smaller platforms (width AND length) and a worse service.

Greetings from Australia ,Jago. Recently you produced a video about toilets, or lack thereof, on the Underground. Now this video on a "smelly" station. Do i detect a theme happening?

The worst station for me must be Bolton on Dearne. I ended up there in 1973 after inadvertently getting on the wrong train at Sheffield. The Dearnways bus was the only way back as there would have been a wait of several hours for the next train. The bus was infrequent and took a circuitous route.

At least Berrylands got a station, and got it quickly - the Southern were enterprising in developing commuter traffic. BR were good at building extra stations in the 1980s but under Railtrack/Network Rail the cost quadrupled (actual figures for the Far North Line, the tiny platform at Beauly cost an eyewatering amount). Now it takes many years and hundreds of millions of pounds to restore a service even along an existing freight line.

Nice video, Beddington lane on a summers day. Nearly blew my hat off when I cycled through it.

Hogsmill is where millais painted ophelia

My toilet must be near berrylands cos it absolutely stinks at the moment

In the early 1970s I had a boss called Frank who travelled by train every day from Berrylands to Vauxhall and had the appropriate season ticket. So I can confidently say that the first time I heard of this station was in 1973. Your video - 51 years later is the second. Is this is record?

We use to that that line to go to collage. It's stank was rank. Me and my friends would hold our breath from 2 minutes i to 2 minutes away. I can still smell the awful smell. I will never be clean.

I must have seen some of that CLASP construction when it was new, but I don't remember it--which is probably the best you could say about it. Now, 60 years on and from the other side of the world, it reminds me of the worst of English municipal architecture: ugly, instantly ramshackle, and specially treated to cultivate mould, lichen and grunge, even in the dry climate of South East England (seriously: 60mm of rain a year is not very much). Though I suppose you could claim it's preserving the tradition of the post-war prefabs. Do pursue the worst station. There is, surely, something grounding about knowing you have seen the worst, and come through

That does look a bit miserable but has now led me down a rabbit hole of the “worst stations I’ve ever been to…” being dumped off the last train home at east Croydon due to driver shortage has always made me displeased with that station…

I used to go through it to get to Surbiton in the 80's. Liked the view across from the train.

I remember the old wooden Berrylands. Never on a train that actually stopped there though so I didn't notice the smell.

Jago’s narratives are soothing to the ear, keep up the good work, bud!

When I was a student at Kingston University in the mid 80’s I discovered the hostels to be next to the sewage farm.

The stairs were almost the end of me, hauled myself up by the hand rail.

another fine video JH, and an ace use of maps 😇

If I can think of a worse station than Berrylands (5 min. walk from home) I may be thinking a very, very long time... At least there is a pub close by which can act as a waiting room

I'd nominate Upper Halliford as the worst station on the southwest trains network. One stop on from Sunbury which featured on a recent video of yours. Right next to the M3 and below a 6 lane over pass. Grey, loud and grim

This could give rise to a new mini series: Towns you associate with particular smells. Poole and Southampton often had a particular aroma, though not an unpleasant one, I think from animal feed mills and suchlike. Dorchester too, from the brewery.

Interesting. I used to go through Berrylands as a commuter when i worked in London in the mid 60s, always wondered why it was there.

Well, that certainly looks like a gap worth minding.

came for the station I never heard of, stayed for Jago Hazzard repeatedly dating himself

I used to ride through their everyday and the smell only hits you for waiting for trains on the platform when you have been waiting for 20minutes

The water company at the time of opening it was very proud of the sewage works, which were the most hi-tech in the world or something. Local residents (or some of them anyway, including one of my great-grandads) were given special tours to show it off. Also, really pleased by the mention of Surbiton Lagoon in the comments below. It's a local by-law that any discussion of Berrylands must include a reference to the much-missed lido.

I used to pass Berrylands as a toddler with my parents when we travelled to London - and they had instilled the Smellylands mantra in me by about the age of 2! The smell is still possibly one of my most vivid memories from that time

Thank for an amazing video Jago

But what was the show you wanted to watch on mtv?

Actually, if you go really early in the morning or really late at night, you do get some Guildford trains which terminate/come from Wimbledon stopping there.

Weybridge station in winter taking the stopper to Woking (WWWW). Its cold, damp, gloomy and you get buffeted by the hurricane gale of the fast services. Special mention too for Woking - stopper arrives at platform 3 which is a sort of Harry Potter paltform for being squeezed in as an afterthought but 200m adrift of the main station so connections are inconvenient.

i am interested if you can describe the difference between pretty obscure and pretty busy.

I travel through Berrylands every week (but don't stop there). I haven't noticed a smell for years, but in the 1950s and ’60s you could smell Berrylands approaching a mile off. It really did stink, and the arms of the water-purifying units swinging round were a sight to behold. I seem to remember another similar sewage works near Byfleet & New Haw, but I don't remember it being quite so smelly.

Thank you Jago for telling me about a wonderful station. However, will never visit this fantastic station with its beautiful buildings and smell. All the best from Sydney Australia 🇦🇺

There is a good reson to cross the line. Cancelled trains into London usually means you have to go to Surbiton to get one from there. Always a joy

So much for 'Berry'lands, dairy didn't come to mind at all😅. Anyway, I think I'll just look at the nice scenery from over here... waaaay over here🔭

Strangely enough, I used the station back in 1969 when I had a summer job in a shop there. It was a long time ago. Weirdly enough, many years later i subsequently learned that my wife's grandfather previously had a greengrocers shop near the station.

Smellylands is also famous for the scene where Basil Fawlty beats his car with a branch.

Used to commute from Surbiton to New Malden and if you were feeling a bit tired, the inrush of sewage smell when the doors opened at Berrylands was better than any caffeine hit.

Probably didn't smell that great when it was full of Cows either.

Living in Surbiton very close to Berrylands (and the old Berrylands dairy as my Victorian house was originally built to be a dairyman's cottage) the pong has gone. It used to be a serious problem and put us off buying a house close to the sewage works, however the smell has largely gone. Perhaps if one stands next to the sewage works, it might still smell a little and the station is very close, but I regularly use the shops in Berrylands and the smell that had previously been a feature has gone.

Three stations I have unfortunately spent a lot of time on for various reasons: Ty Croes, Uttoxeter and Peartree. All useless for various reasons. Also Blythe Bridge and Tutbury and Hatton

Never used this station but recently had the use of a very quaint station called Furze Platt. Sinle track and platform on a line from Maidenhead to Marlow - track nearly overgrown by weeds at each end.

I find Essex Road is worse; it feels haunted!!!

the worst station for me, by a decent margin, is wembley central - ESPECIALLY if you’re trying to use services on the mainline as you’re forced to wait in the concourse with no seating or facilities. other than that the whole station is just dingy and unpleasent

Lydney Station is also bad in the summer with a sewage farm near by. Must have been rank in the old signal box.