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
Obviously now with a much-elevated ground-level, what is now a tarmac footpath to the village school at Dunton Green was the track-bed of the branch-line going under the A224 London Road heading towards Dunton Green station junction.
Reference: WH0135
The tree line moving away from the main-line at Dunton Green is the overgrown track-bed of the Westerham branch-line photographed in September 2017. Fifty-five years without a weed-killing train produces a lot of growth.
Reference: WH0134
‘Q’ class 0-4-4 tank-engine number 136 is about to leave Westerham pulling a ‘birdcage’ set of coaches. This peculiar term was used to describe coaches with the little top-light window that the guard would use with a periscope viewer to look at the state of signals ahead – not so easy for the engine crew ...
Reference: WH0131
Looking-up from the subway tunnel at the lower-level reveals the overgrown track-bed embankment curving away to the west of Dunton Green station over the top of the subway.
Reference: WH0145
This is the view of the entrance to the subway as seen by people walking across the field from Dunton Green village on their way to the station.
Reference: WH0147
This is the view out of the subway onto the field footpath that leads to Dunton Green village. Original South Eastern Railway railings and fence posts still exist identifying the boundary of what was ‘railway land’, not to be trespassed on.
Reference: WH0148
Introduced in the early 1930s, ‘H’ Class locomotives were popular amongst the crews from Tonbridge shed. Being of 0-4-4T wheel configuration and tank-engines (no tender), they were stable and easy to manoeuvre in both directions, there being no turntable on the line.
Reference: WH0116
A 1903 advertisement for Benjamin Horton, the local coal and timber merchant. Horton’s coal office still survives on the old station site at the edge of London Road, currently housing a barber’s shop (2019).
Reference: WH0111
Bill Curtis: “…I travelled with my father on the Westerham branch in the summer of 1959 and as we were the only passengers boarding the empty train at Dunton Green, we were invited by the driver to accompany him and his fireman in the cab for the journey – what a treat! Suffice it to ...
Reference: WH0113
This locomotive worked out of Tonbridge shed between July 1953 to June 1956 and then again between March 1961 to the end of operations in October 1961. It was ‘Push-and-Pull’ fitted in June 1953 for branch-line use.
Reference: WH0120
The ‘tablet’ was part of an electrical blocking system used to ensure there was only one moving locomotive on the branch-line at any moment in time. The large loop handle of the tablet made catching easier if this had to happen while the train was moving.
Reference: WH0119