It was opened on 3 September 1883 by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSCR) closed eighty years later and is currently used as an aggregates depot.

[1] The line opened without ceremony, with the first service, a goods train, leaving Haywards Heath at 8.34am to collect freight at Ardingly and continue to Horsted Keynes.

In common with other Lewes and East Grinstead line stations, it was constructed in a neo-Queen Anne style and presented as a two-storey Victorian country cottage.

The yard saw considerable inward traffic in the form of timber for a local sawmill which was subsequently dispatched back out in consignments of prepared boards.

The section was however still used occasionally to transport rolling stock to the newly established Bluebell Railway, and the last movement along the line was recorded on 13 May 1964 when Terrier No 32636 passed through prior to lifting of the track.

In 1997 the Heritage Bluebell Railway acquired the trackbed, only as far as the Aggregate Depot boundary at Ardingly, and holds long-term aspirations to restore and reopen the branch.

To help bridge the gap created by the missing (Sheriff Mill) viaduct, spoil from the excavation of Imberhorne cutting (part of the works necessary for the Bluebell's extension to East Grinstead) was used to extend existing embankments, towards Ardingly.

[16] Two public consultation sessions were held at Ardingly in September 2022, to set out proposals which have been submitted to Mid-Sussex District Council.