The line through Birkbeck was opened as a double-track branch of the West End of London and Crystal Palace Railway in 1858, but was closed from 1860 to 1863 and again in 1915 until reopened in 1929 as part of the Southern Railway electrification scheme. A year later, on 2 March 1930, a new station was opened, to serve a growing suburban area, and named after the Birkbeck Freehold Land Society, whose name derived from the Yorkshire philanthropist George Birkbeck. In 1983 the line between Beckenham Junction and Bromley Junction was reduced to single track and the former up line and up platform was abandoned. The track was subsequently removed and the station building demolished.