This is the oldest permanent terminus in London. It was opened on the 14 December 1836 in the presence of the Lord Mayor and Sherifs,the Common Council and some 2000 guests. It handled the trains of London' first railway, the London & Greenwich. At the start it was a humble affair with two platforms and three tracks, and no shelter, set on the viaduct which carried the railway in from Greenwich.

In 1839 the London & Croydon joined and built a new terminus on the north side of the existing one. This necessitated crossing the tracks of the Greenwich line. Parliament now required extra tracks to be provided on the south side of the original viaduct, so the companies agreed to swap their sites. With the arrival of two more railways, the London & Brighton and the South Eastern, a joint station was constructed. Designed by Henry Roberts, it was a handsome two storey building in the Italian style with a campanile. Behind it was a train shed designed by William Cubitt.

The Greenwich company charged such excessive tolls that the Croydon and South Eastern companies decided to create a new terminus at Bricklayers Arms, south east of London Bridge. This opened in May 1844, but only lasted as a regular passenger terminus until 1852. Meanwhile the south Eastern had taken a lease on the Greenwich line in 1845, and as the joint station was proving to be too small, it was demolished in 1849. The site was split in two and on the northern side the South Eastern erected a three story building designed by its architect Samuel Beazley. This opened in 1851 and survived until bomb damaged in 1941.

Meanwhile the Croydon and Brighton companies having merged as the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway in 1846 built their own terminus on the south side of the South Eastern building, but like it, flat roofed and three storey. A new train shed was built behind, completed in 1866. In 1861 a hotel was built on the Brighton side which also suffered bomb damage in 1941.

In 1864 the station was altered to accommodate through trains on the north side for the Charing Cross extension. In 1928 the Southern Railway made access through the dividing wall possible, and in 1979 British Rail effected a major reconstruction, retaining only the Brighton train shed of 1866. Minor parts of the earlier stations survive and are recogniseable after careful scrutiny (see Gordon Biddle's 'Historic Railway Buildings').