An afternoon train photographed at Brasted station on the last day of services, October 28th 1961. Adorned with a Union Jack, someone had chalked on the boiler plate door “Farewell to the Flyer 1881 – 1961” the Westerham Valley Railway, come and gone in only eighty years…
Reference: WH0154
Another “Jolly Boys” outing waits outside Hookers ‘Herald Steam Printing Works’ in a charabanc packed to the gunwales. The term “Jolly Boys” comes from the description given to a series of drinking vessels grouped together and joined by tubes. With a couple of barrels of ‘bright beer’ tucked away in the back, ’nuff said…
Reference: WH0155
The same location, probably the same time, but different charabanc and different guys. At a guess, this might have been a conglomeration of working men from the Brewery, the Men’s Club and the Printing Works…
Reference: WH0156
The 1920s were relatively hard times due to national recovery being slow after the First World War and annual holidays had not really become established for poorer workers, so a day’s outing to the seaside was a rare treat and all that some workers with large families could afford. “Jolly Boys” charabanc trips were usually ...
Reference: WH0157
Here a shot of the overgrown trackbed not far from the site of Chevening Halt, taken in September 2017.
Reference: WH0158
A distant view of the trackbed between Dunton Green and Chevening is marked by the tree line of fifty-six years overgrowth on the unadopted land.
Reference: WH0163
Peter Finch “My dad wasn’t a rich man but he looked after his pennies. He worked for the two Doctors, Hay and Cotton. He split his week between them, as a gardener for Dr Hay and a groom for Dr Cotton. He only got labourer’s wages, about two pounds a week, but he’d put something ...
Reference: WH0164
With the formation of the South Eastern & Chatham Railway Management Committee in 1899, travelling conditions for passengers began to improve on the Westerham branch line. There were new locomotives in lined Brunswick green and new six-wheeled carriages as well. The elderly Cudworth engines previously used on the branch were replaced with James Stirling’s class ...
Reference: WH0167
Retained as a convenient place for the bus to stop off the road, this is the site of the station forecourt, as shown on the adjacent 1896 map. L.B. denotes a letterbox which is still there albeit of modern design.
Reference: WH0168
Another group assembled with the radiator of a charabanc lurking just in the right hand side of frame. Everyone is sporting a rather large button-hole, so it’s some kind of celebration, but what…?
Reference: WH0169
This and the following five photographs depict the closed brach-line at Westerham between 1962 and 1964. A rather dismal scene.
Reference: WH0172
All looking rather gloomy and unloved, the goods shed, crane and station building opposite the Crown Hotel. The railway lasted eighty years, while the Crown just about made its centenary before it too, was closed and pulled down. June Ingram “…there was a long bus strike in the late 1950s and I was at the Tech ...
Reference: WH0178
Seen here in the late 1950s and standing close to the slip road up to Brasted station, this overbridge carried the single track of the Westerham Valley Railway over Station Road. Today, standing in its place is a six-lane overbridge carrying the M25 motorway.
Reference: WH0179
During the early 1960s there was an attempt to reopen the line by a body who formed themselves as the Westerham Valley Railway Association. Here we see two members of the ‘ganging team’ working on a plate-layer’s trolly in 1962.
Reference: WH0180
This locomotive worked out of Tonbridge shed between January 1950 to October 1951 and then again between June 1955 to June 1961. It was ‘Push-and-Pull’ fitted in December 1949. This meant the driver could operate the controls (Regulator, Reverser and Brake) from a compartment at the back end of the train, meaning time was saved ...
Reference: WH0117
There was no station built at Chevening when the railway was opened in 1881, but in 1906 an unstaffed ‘halt’ was erected for the sum of £50 including the steps from the roadbridge and the gate. It was operated like a request stop, so if nobody asked for it when boarding the train, and no-one ...
Reference: WH0132
The first motor dray employed by the Black Eagle brewery was a 1921 ‘Peerless’ originally built for troop carrying in the first World War. Note this example has no windscreen! Draymen Frank ‘Cracky’ Blake and Jim Obediah Waterhouse would have suffered a chilly journey quite often. Previous drays had been road locomotives (Traction-engines) preceded by horse-drawn ...
Reference: WH0133