Hart was built as rural railway station in 1839 to serve the village of Hart, approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) to the south west, and the settlement of Crimdon, approximately 0.5 miles (0.80 km) to the north, in County Durham, North East England. By the time of the station's final closure in 1963, it had also come to serve the small settlement of Hart Station that had grown around it and which would later become a suburb of Hartlepool.