Westerham
The route to Westerham
became the second of two branches to feed off the SER’s Tonbridge cut-off
line, the latter of which fully opened to passenger traffic for the entirety of
its length on 1st May 1868. It was preceded by the 1½-mile-long branch to
Bromley (SER), which came into use on 1st January 1878 on a spur from Grove
Park. The line’s beginnings date back to 22nd March 1876, when residents of
Westerham submitted a Bill to Parliament for the construction of a through route
between the SER's Tonbridge cut-off line at Dunton Green, and the LB&SCR's
proposed Oxted route. The SER and LB&SCR were old enemies; indeed, until the
completion of the diversionary route through Chislehurst and Orpington in 1868,
there was prevalent animosity between the two over line usage between London
Bridge and Redhill. Based on its experience, the SER wanted to avoid further
contact with the LB&SCR, and refused to support the Dunton Green to Oxted
proposals. Parliament agreed to approve the Bill, but only if the Westerham to
Oxted section of the line was dropped from the scheme. Royal Assent for a
4¾-mile long branch between Dunton Green and Westerham was formally received on
24th July 1876. Promoted under the
auspices of the ‘’Westerham Valley Company’’, the single-track branch came into
use on 7th July 1881, being worked by the SER from the outset. Indeed, the
company bought out the independent Westerham Valley Company in that August.
Westerham station was typically SER in character. The branch had been
constructed during the thick of the company’s ‘’economical’’ era, which saw the
provision of wooden buildings to keep costs and construction time to a minimum.
The terminus arrangement here only ever included a single platform face from the
outset, on the western side of the approaching line. It was host to a 70-foot
long single-storey station building, constituted almost wholly of
tongue-and-groove timber, set upon a low brick base (a slightly smaller variant
of this same design also came into use at the intermediate site at Brasted).
This featured a pyramid-shaped slated roof, from which emerged a pair of
brick-built chimneystacks. The building was equipped with a very slightly
upward-sloping platform canopy, which ran the full 70-foot of the main
structure, this being supported by seven stanchions and coming complete with a
simple, but attractive, spiked valance. A small wooden appendix existed
alongside the main building’s southern elevation, solely for the storage of
bicycles. The platform was brick-built (the terminus at Hawkhurst was notable
for having a platform constituted of wooden railway sleepers), and was lit by
diamond-shaped wrought-iron gas lamps.
The layout encompassed features synonymous with rural branch line termini.
Essentially, goods facilities comprised two lengthy sidings: the first of these
extended for 285 yards – more or less the entire length of the station layout –
and terminated end-on to a dock platform. This line also passed through a
30-foot long single-track goods shed. Like the main building, this was
fabricated from timber, set upon a shallow brick base. It comprised double
wooden doors on both sides, a small porch canopy on its eastern elevation, and
its entrance was protected by a loading gauge. The latter was also in the
company of a five-ton lifting crane. The second siding, running along the
eastern perimeter of the site, was a shorter affair, being 185 yards in length
and serving a 95-foot-long row of coal staithes. Being situated at the end of
the line, a 50-foot-long engine shed was provided at Westerham, this being
situated 320-feet beyond the platform, at the Dunton Green end of the layout.
This was a through affair, again fabricated from the familiar timber set upon a
brick base, and was used to stable terminating locomotives overnight. Unusually,
however, no turntable was ever installed, perhaps because initially, only tank
engines (which could operate effectively backwards or forwards) were envisaged to
operate the bulk of the services. An iron water tank was, however, in evidence,
this being suspended upon stilts alongside the shed road. The entire branch,
inclusive of Dunton Green station, had been signalled by contractors Stevens &
Sons, and a signal box of this company’s design appeared 20-feet beyond the
northern end of Westerham’s platform. This was a two-storey affair, comprising
thirteen levers, and in keeping with the layout, was constituted wholly of
timber, the base included. The cabin here controlled three signal posts: two
‘’home’’ posts and a single ‘’shunt’’ signal for access to the goods yard.
Stevens & Sons carried out further signalling work for the SER in the following
year, 1882, along the branch from Hoo Junction to Port Victoria.
Under the SE&CR, notable changes were made to the services. The company had
entered a period that favoured the humble railmotor, this of which was
essentially a small locomotive and carriage built on a common chassis. The turn
of the 20th Century saw railway companies – not just the SE&CR – experience
increasing competition from trams and buses for local traffic. Consequently,
numerous wooden-fabricated halt platforms were established, to provide an
improved local service to sparsely populated areas. A steam railmotor operation
commenced along the Westerham branch on 16th April 1906, and a single wooden
platform came into use in-between Dunton Green and Brasted, named ‘’Chevening
Halt’’. Consequently, the engine shed at Westerham became redundant, but
nevertheless remained standing. The railmotors were Bricklayers Arms-based, and
fifty-six hard wooden seats provided an uncomfortable ride. Underpowered for the
diagrams employed on, their existence was not helped by the fact that passengers
sitting in the carriage compartment nearest the locomotive had to suffer
significant heat generated by the firebox! By 1909, the SE&CR had seen the error
of its ways and at Ashford Works in February of that year, the company began the
construction of what would become a batch of eight 0-6-0 ‘’P’’ Class
locomotives, to take over the railmotors’ duties. The latter were recycled into
locomotive-hauled carriage stock.
On the advent of the Southern Railway, electrification of ex-SE&CR suburban
lines was swift, and by July 1925 Orpington already had its first electric
service. Ten years later, the SR completed the extension of third rail to
Sevenoaks, but unlike the Bromley North branch, the line to Westerham was never
electrified during the works, no doubt due to its location outside of the main
suburban operation, combined with its light traffic. Nevertheless, this did not
prevent some form of modernisation at the site, and during the 1935 scheme, the
SR replaced the diamond-shaped gas lamps with its distinctive swan-neck variant.
These came complete with affixed ‘’Target’’ name signs. Exmouth Junction
prefabricated concrete fencing also appeared to the immediate south of the
station building at this time, running along the remains of the perimeter and
terminating in line with the buffer stops. A decade earlier, the redundant
timber engine shed was razed to the ground, but the brick foundations remained
in evidence until the end of the route’s existence. Although the SR excluded the
branch from the 1935 electrification scheme, avoiding infrastructure costs, the
company still sought to modernise the traction on the line. In 1936, a 44-seat
capacity steam
rail bus, built by Sentinel-Cammell, was deployed on the branch. This had been
drafted in from the single-track Hove to Devil's Dyke branch in Sussex, a line
of steep gradients which had originally opened on 1st September 1887. Here, it
was discovered that the rail bus neither had adequate power to ascend the
gradients, nor enough braking force whilst descending, but its high
gearing ratio had the potential to speed up times on the short Westerham branch.
It soon
transpired to be even more unsuccessful than the railmotors of the SE&CR,
and a series of failures saw that it remained in service for just a matter of months. The rail buses had a particular
disadvantage when maintenance was required: taking the traction out of service
for repair also meant withdrawing the passenger accommodation, the two naturally
being one of the same thing.
Throughout its entire existence, this tranquil station changed little, apart for
some minor modifications to the track layout. During the latter Southern Railway
era and early British Railways days, the branch was worked by ex-LC&DR ‘’R’’
Class 0-4-4 locomotives. These engines operated in push-pull mode with carriage
stock that had been converted from the doomed SE&CR railmotor sets. In 1952, a
general stock replacement scheme on the branch began, which included drafting in
ex-SE&CR ‘’H’’ Class 0-4-4 tank engines to replace the elderly locomotives of
LC&DR origin. In addition, the converted railmotor sets were replaced with
Maunsell-designed carriages which had been cascaded down from main line use, and
these in turn were modified for push-pull operation.
The February 1956-approved £45,000,000 Kent Coast Electrification (£777,000,000
at today’s prices) would result in the branch becoming an isolated
steam-operated appendix of a modernised main line. On 12th June 1961, scheduled
electric services commenced via the ex-SER route to Dover (although the full
electric timetable did not commence until the 18th of the following year), and
the closure of the Paddock Wood to Hawkhurst branch coincided with this. Despite
this, the Westerham line continued to operate, but the end was nigh. Reportedly,
the branch was creating a total loss of £26,000 (approximately £430,232 at 2007
prices) per year for British Rail, and with hints of a new London Orbital
motorway requiring much of the track bed site, the line was doomed. The final day
of passenger operation was on 28th October 1961, and was probably the line's busiest since
the original opening eighty years previously. During the last day, ''H'' Class
No. 31518 operated the morning push-pull services along the line, whilst tender
engines in the form of ex-SE&CR D1 Class No. 31739, and ex-SR Q1 Class No.
33029, appeared in the afternoon hauling ''main line'' stock.
Life After Death
Local opposition to the branch's closure had been strong, and although a sizeable petition and a Parliamentary debate had failed to prevent the cessation of services, all was not yet lost. In March 1962, the ''Westerham Valley Railway Association'' (WVRA) was formed, which aimed to purchase the line and its infrastructure, and run its own private services. In July of that year, the organisation took out a lease on the main timber-fabricated station building at Westerham, which provided office accommodation, and subsequently, the tired-looking structure was cosmetically restored. A lease on the building at Brasted station soon followed, although the headquarters of the group remained at Westerham. Negotiations with British Railways had revealed an asking price of £30,000 (about £481,062 at 2007 prices) for the entire branch, but as part of this agreement, the nationalised organisation required the WVRA to operate a commuter service. This condition was another cost-cutting measure to work in BR's favour: to compensate the local community for the withdrawal of rail services from Westerham, BR was compelled to contribute £8,700 (about £130,000 at 2007 prices) towards the running of a bus service to and from Dunton Green. The WVRA commenced its search for suitable rolling stock, and with the prospect of acquiring a trio of ex-GWR diesel railcars, the running of a railway service looked likely. Ex-SE&CR 0-4-4 ''H'' Class No. 31263 was purchased from BR and arrived at the site from Three Bridges, and a motley collection of former Metropolitan and SE&CR passenger rolling stock was acquired. Plans were thwarted, however, as Kent County Council intervened on the grounds that much of the track bed was required for a proposed London Orbital motorway (later to become the M25). Unless the WVRA was able to find over £26,000 (about £380,000 at 2007 prices) to compensate the council for the installation of a bridge over the line, then a compulsory purchase of the route would be undertaken, followed shortly by the infilling of much of the track bed. The organisation was unable to meet such a high financial obligation, and consequently, the entire railway scheme fell on stony ground. The main station building at Westerham was flattened during 1966, but that at Brasted survived in a derelict state until 1978. Construction of the Westerham to Godstone and Sundridge Road to Westerham sections of the London Orbital commenced in the July and December of 1976 respectively.
1961
SR swan neck gas lamps are in evidence as ''H'' Class Tank No. 31263 trundles into the solitary platform with
a Maunsell push-pull coach set. On the right, in the background, can be seen the water tower, whilst just beyond
this is the former site of the engine shed. © David Glasspool Collection
28th October 1961
Ex-SE&CR D1 Class No. 31739 was observed at the terminus on the final day of operation, surrounded by a
mass of photographers. The locomotive itself was withdrawn from service in the following month. On the left
can be seen the spiked valance of the platform canopy, which had a very mild upward-slant. Behind the engine
can be seen the pitched roof of the timber-built goods shed, complete with a ventilated van on the goods line.
On the extreme left is the edge of a more recent addition - a large advertising billboard. © David Glasspool Collection
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