The line was constructed by the London and South Western Railway primarily to cater for tourists visiting Hampton Court Palace and opened in 1849.

The company chairman, William Chaplin, noted that the new line would "afford a fresh means of cheap and legitimate recreation to the poorer classes".

[11] The act of parliament authorising the construction of Hampton Court branch line was granted royal assent in July 1846[12] and the land required was purchased by the LSWR by August the following year.

[14] The engineer, Joseph Locke, was a strong proponent of extending the line towards Berkshire,[15] but after the rival Windsor, Staines and South Western Railway scheme was approved by parliament in 1847, the LSWR decided to build the Hampton Court branch to its original design.

[18] Initially six trains per day ran in each direction, four each way on Sundays, with a typical journey time between Waterloo and Hampton Court of around 50 minutes.

The return fare was 5 s.[19][a] A letter published in The Times on 13 February 1849 by a correspondent writing under the pseudonym, Medicus, reported that, a few days earlier, the 12:45 departure from Hampton Court had been hauled by a horse.

[21] The railway historian, Alan A. Jackson, suggests that horse-power may have been used to mitigate an unstable embankment[22] or because of an initial lack of locomotives.

[22] It is unclear whether the current station building, believed to have been designed by the architect, William Tite, was complete by the time the line opened.

[24] In August 1851, the company stated that it had been disappointed with the financial performance of the line in its first two years of operation, but expressed the expectation that passenger numbers would rise.

Housebuilding began in the Kent Town neighbourhood of East Molesey in the 1860s[21] and in the Thames Ditton area in the final decade of the 19th century.

[35][b] The Hampton Court branch was included in the first phase of the LSWR suburban electrification programme[37] and electric services began on 18 June 1916.

[31] Demand for travel on the Hampton Court branch was stimulated at the end of the 19th century with the creation of Hurst Park Racecourse in 1889.

[21][d] The busiest day of the year on the line was Whit Monday (in late May or early June), when the most popular meeting took place.

[21][e] Two additional sidings for race-day traffic were added at Hampton Court station in 1908[30] and racehorses were transported via the line until the course closed in October 1962.

[46][47] Six trains ran each hour from Waterloo off peak to bring visitors to the show from central London[31][46] and a spokesperson for Network SouthEast later confirmed that the operator had recouped the cost of the sponsorship from fares.