About SideTracked Caches
This cache belongs to the SideTracked series. It is not designed to take you to a magical place with a breath taking view. It's a distraction for the weary traveller, but anyone else can go and find it too. More Information can be found on the SideTracked Series website at www.sidetrackedseries.info https://www.sidetrackedseries.info
The station was opened on 22 July 1912,at the request of the Golf Club, which had opened the previous year. It is on what was the Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway, which had been opened in 1906. The station was originally called Denham Golf Club Platform, and it was built to serve the adjacent golf club. Between the two World Wars the platforms were lengthened, and the station was made a halt. The original "up" platform was on the London side of the road bridge, and made of wood, with an access path connecting to the track leading to the Golf Club. In 1954 British Railways had a new concrete "up" platform built on the Wycombe side of the road bridge, opposite the "down" platform, which was also rebuilt in concrete. At the same time a proposed name change to 'Higher Denham' was rejected.
The two waiting rooms are original Great Western Railway "pagoda" shelters. The ticket office, at road level on the down side, was also a pagoda building. Both waiting rooms and the original ticket office have been listed buildings since 27 November 1992, to prevent their replacement by the bus shelter type structures then being installed at other stations on the line. The ticket office was damaged by fire in 2005 and demolished early in 2007. It was replaced with a near replica in 2007, but unlike the original the new building has no clerk's window. The waiting rooms have been repainted to match the ticket office.
The original platform lamp-posts were cast iron, marked with the initials "G.W. & G.C. Jt" of the original operator. The lamp-posts were removed when the station lighting — and indeed the whole line — were modernised in about 1991, at about the time as the new Class 165 diesel multiple unit trains entered service.
I would be interested to know if any other golf clubs have their own station named after them.
The station's service pattern is unusual in that it is served by trains on two completely different routes in either direction. Southbound services originate at Gerrards Coss at nearly all intermediate stations (the exact stopping pattern varies depending on the day). On northbound services, however, Denham Golf Club is the first calling point after London Marylebone; these trains then continue past Gerrards Cross, stopping at most intermediate stations before finally terminating at Banbury. The respective corresponding services in the opposite direction pass through this station non-stop. This means that the only stations to receive direct, regular, all-day services both to and from Denham Golf Club are London Marylebone (the terminus) and Gerrards Cross (the next station to the north).