Chessington South
The apocalypse is here, and it's a fun day out
If you want to severely depress your children, or at least manage their expectations on their way to a theme park, take them on the train to Chessington World of Adventures. This profoundly dilapidated terminus is the nearest stop, where "nearest" means "twenty minute walk along a relentlessly busy road".
The station, a sorry, peeling, greeny-gray elongated stone shelter, only has one working platform. On the other side, there's an identical shelter and platform but there's no evidence there ever was any access there -- there's not even a broken footbridge. The unused platform is covered in weeds, poo and rubble, and is curiously dotted with blue train seat cushions tossed out of the windows of the train. A couple of seat cushions seem to have made it onto the line itself, where they have become welded to the rail.
Despite this being a terminal, the line continues to run for no apparent reason under the bridge for another five hundred yards, getting progressively more overgrown. If you climb the bridge and look away from the station, you can see the railway tracks abruptly disappear into a clump of forest.
Trains leave here around every thirty minutes, although it becomes a more popular destination if there is engineering work and South West Trains need to divert trains, which happens approximately always. Here, the drivers and guards hop off, look around, appear visibly upset and then, after finishing a fag, drive off as soon as they can.
Further up the platform, you can hear the soft cooing of a healthy-looking family of pigeons living inside the wall. There's no physical way they could have got behind the locked grill, unless they are quantum entanglement pigeons, so they must have pecked their way in through the stone. They share their living space with a rusty trolley, more builders' rubble, cones and broken headlights. And, no doubt, poo.
You have to be concentrating quite hard to pick out the walking route to Chessington World of Adventures, Zone 6's and London's only theme park. Take hold of your kids' hands, and turn right out of the station as you pass the internet access touch-screen, where somebody has broken the touch-sensitive glass, graffitied the screen and then somehow replaced the broken glass back on top.
You'll then pass a college where they have a weird half-tree, half-rocket engine art sculpture in the foyer, and arrive at aforementioned relentlessly busy road (which has just come off the M25). On the other side is the Barwell cafe, which, by the looks of its forecourt, specialises in bags of sand.
Head left down the road, going past an utterly dispiriting industrial estate that you just know greedy London developers are going to get to at some point, and keep going, and keep going some more, and then keep going. Keep going a bit longer. Cross the road at some point. You may have to wait several hours for a gap in traffic. Keep going for a while.
At this point, your children will hate you for making them walk, and will be begging you to go back and get your car, but you must tell them it's alright because you've just reached an exciting theme park! Now you must walk through an acre of car park to get to the entrance.
Residents of Zone 6, #22 – Chessington South
 | "Mind the cars, Michael," cautions his mother, but all that Michael focuses on is the empty packet of bacon-flavoured Wheat Crunchies he grips between his teeth. |
Rides at Chessington on which maximum height of 1.96m applies
- Rameses' Revenge
- Carousel
- Bash Street Bus
Rides at Chessington on which maximum chest width of 51" applies
- Rameses' Revenge
- Vampire
- Rattlesnake
Other notable rides at Chessington
- Berry Bouncers
- Mr Toadie's Crazy Cars
- Professor Burp's Bubbleworks
While this adventurer can't offer any opinions on whether Chessington World of Adventures is any good, as Thatcher was in power last time he was there and the entrance fee now costs as much as a Premiership football match, there is a vending machine that sells Ribena for £1.30. It reads "If this vending machine has lost its magic, or you need a refund, please call..."
People waiting in the queue are subjected to music from hidden speakers in the ground, which seems to be on a strange loop of Benny Hill, trumpet concerto, Oh When The Saints, and Barney The Dinosaur. The queue lines, strangely non-existent on a sunny weekend, are divided by grey blocks of wood with shiny red knobs on.
As for Chessington South itself, there's really only a tiny community here; some postcode profilers may describe Chessington as a largely Sri Lankan Tamil community but there seems precious little to base that on here. Instead, it seems to mainly consist of red-faced, white-shirted, blue-collar males who fill their garages up with engine parts and grunt as they stick things in their lawn.
One typical house has several 'beware of the vicious dog' notices pasted on the door, and a stone statue of a guard dog standing tall, brave and ready to fight any intruder. Outside the door, a man was trying to put a collar on a whimpering and probably agoraphobic pooch.
Various structures made out of wood in the front gardens of houses in Chessington South
Despite the fast traffic, it's quiet here. You can tell it's very quiet as even the Harvester pub has brown paper on the windows and 'OPENING SOON' signs. A Skoda Favorit for sale in the car park for £395 advertises its unique selling points as "40 pages of service history", "Starts first time, every time" and "Half a tank of fuel".
It isn't very clear why Chessington South station exists. It certainly isn't a park and ride station for the M25, which lies about two miles south; there are only five parking spaces at the tiny station forecourt. It may just continue to exist for Chessington World of Adventures, but it's clearly not very good at being a station for there. So it must be, at the most, a testament to the power of the human spirit to survive under desolate conditions.
Statistics
Time to Zone 1 31mins on South West Trains (Vauxhall)
Last trains to Zone 1 Mon-Sat 2340 Sun 2312 (last train not direct; change at Wimbledon)
What to do if you get stuck in Chessington South after the last train to Zone 1
The safer solution is to turn right out of the station, find the main road, turn right again and walk a few miles along a dual carriageway and over the busy A3 roundabout towards Surbiton, where you should find an N77, if the sun hasn't exploded by then. There are no taxis from the front of the station, although the nice people at the Balti house may give you a ride if they're delivering up that way.
You could, however, cross your fingers, close your eyes, yell really hard and run down the railway track into the foliage. Then you may find yourself transported to a faery world where magic night buses powered by honey and sunlight run every thirty seconds directly to your already-warm bed. Or you may end up with a face full of tree. Just believe!
