It is managed by Great Western Railway, the seventh company to be responsible for the station and the third franchise since privatisation in 1997.

The station was opened in 1863 by the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway, with a single track and platform.

The surrounding area is primarily residential, with the City Academy school to the east and a First West of England bus depot to the north-west.

[1] Just north of this bridge is Lawrence Hill Junction, where a goods line diverges to the west, serving a waste terminal.

There are metal and glass shelters and seating on each of the two platforms, as well as customer help points which give next train information and allow the user to contact a helpdesk.

[8] All services at Lawrence Hill are operated by Great Western Railway using Class 150 and 158 Sprinter and 166 Turbo DMUs.

Southbound a single afternoon service continues beyond Bristol to Exeter St Davids via Weston-super-Mare.

To cope with the expected increase in traffic, the line was doubled, and a second platform was added to the east of the two tracks.

[16] From 1924, many trains to Avonmouth were extended to Severn Beach, a growing seaside resort, and some on to Pilning, then back to Temple Meads via Patchway.

[4] By 1947, just before the start of the British Rail era, there were 33 daily services each direction between Avonmouth and Temple Meads, and 18 on Sundays.

[4][18] The footbridge was demolished by 1970, forcing passengers to change platform via the steps to Church Road at the south end of the station.

[22][23][24] British Rail was split into business-led sectors in the 1980s, at which time operations at Stapleton Road passed to Regional Railways.

[9][25] When the railway was privatised in 1997, local services were franchised to Wales & West,[26] which was succeeded by Wessex Trains, an arm of National Express, in 2001.

[27] Services along the Severn Beach Line were increased to 10 per day in each direction by 2005,[4] with Bristol City Council providing a subsidy to Wessex Trains.

[47][48] The group Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways supports the electrification continuing beyond the main lines,[49][50] as does MP for Weston-super-Mare John Penrose.

[56] Lawrence Hill is on the Weston-super-Mare/Yate corridor, one of the main axes of the Greater Bristol Metro, a rail transport plan which aims to enhance transport capacity in the Bristol area, including half-hourly services along the Severn Beach Line.

[60][61] The station's lack of step-free access to the southbound platform has come under criticism from Bristol West MP Thangam Debbonaire, who noted that due to the time taken to get a train to Stapleton Road and then back to Temple Meads, what should be a five-minute journey could take an hour.

The mail train, hauled by English Welsh & Scottish Class 67 diesel locomotive number 67002 "Special Delivery", with 67012 at the rear, was travelling at 50 mph when the incident occurred.

The driver of the mail train suffered a broken arm and cuts to the face and chest, but there were no other injuries.