Dover Harbour Station
It's our favourite time of the month! Local adventure time!
We've been looking forward to this post as it leans into our niche interest of historic transport and disused railway stations, we also really enjoyed the last one on Dover Western Docks Station.
Way back in 1844 the South Eastern Railway Company opened Dover's first railway station, Town Station. A year later it was decided that there was a need to connect Dover to London by rail via Canterbury but work didn't fully start until 1851 when the Railway Company built its North Kent Line. Two years later the East Kent Railway Company was formed and work commenced to connect Rochester to Canterbury which completed in 1860. During this time work was also being done to connect Canterbury to Dover but the SER pulled out of joining it to the NKL so the EKR stepped in to build a line to connect Rochester to London which would do the job. They built a new station at Canterbury and changed their name to London, Chatham, and Dover Railway and the line opened in 1861.
It was about this time that they built the Harbour Station on Elizabeth street and a few underhanded things took place in order to do this, such as demolishing a bunch of properties which were perfectly fine. To get away with it they made out these were unsanitary properties and they were doing the community a favour, but this included the priest's house and the Holy Trinity School so not only did they have to compensate the Catholic community in Dover, but they also had to pay for a new school.
The new station was always intended to be temporary, but after knocking down all those buildings it was just as well that they decided to keep it! Harbour Station was very much in competition with SER's Town Station and the advantage of the former was that passengers luggage could be loaded onto the ferries at the same time as them which wasn't usually the case otherwise. Because of this, the LCDR rather seductively added the fact to their adverts as they heavily implied that Town Station lost your luggage, not to mention the fact that if you used the SER you'd have to carry your own luggage if you wanted to keep hold of it, gosh what a chore!
They eventually replaced the temporary Harbour Station with an upgraded structure which has partially survived to this day, and omitted the booking office as most of the passengers would already have their tickets when travelling abroad via train. A booking office was provided on the harbour side for those needing tickets within the UK however. A clocktower was also included and the design was meant to irk the SER somewhat as it was built in the style they had originally intended but the LCDR got there first.
It was actually this clock tower that may have inspired 'Railway Time' as the Railway Company were so proud of their clocktower that instead of using the local church clock to set the time as was common in those days, they used their own. In 1840 Great Western Railway introduced synchronisation across all their railway clocks so that an accurate timetable could be produced. This was then copied at individual train stations and then the Royal Observatory at Greenwich jumped on board with Greenwich Mean Time which is what we use today. Sadly the clock at Harbour Station was removed and never replaced as it had a tendency to be slow, so when a business man ended up missing his train and brought court action against the LCDR they lost the case and the clock paid the price.
In 1871 they joined with the SER and extended the line to Admiralty Pier which we know so we won't repeat anything that happened between this year and 1902 as it can be found in our last Dover railway post. 1902 brought an Act to extend the line from the Harbour to the new Prince of Wales Pier which meant that the station had to be rebuilt. They ended up rebuilding the station platform on wheels so it could swing out of the way as needs were established, and it wasn't until WWI that the Seafront Railway was laid which could access the Harbour Station by the Prince of Wales Pier. Unfortunately, in 1906 the Deutschland (a Liner) collided with the pier and pretty much wrote off the pier and itself and from that moment onward not only was the agreement between the shipping company and the railway called off, but cruise liner traffic declined as a whole which wasn't so good for this section of Kent's railways.
As it was, after the railway companies had to merge in 1921 the decision was made to close Harbour Station, this was announced in 1924 and took place in 1927. They had planned to demolish the site and build new sheds, however, after demolition had begun the ferry captains stepped in to save the clocktower as they used it for guidance and so it was agreed to keep the tower and connecting building- just reduce it a little. After changing hands a few times the disused station fell into the hands of P&O in 2002 who used it for training as they couldnt demolish it as it had gained listed status. They decided to sell it 8 years later instead and a local businessman took it off their hands in 2013 and renovated it a little to resemble what it once was. It stands today a shell of its former self, but at least it looks more like it used to. A signal box was added as well as a train station sign and it is now a fitting tribute to a lost station even though it is closed to the public.
We really enjoyed getting a closer look on our walk to Marine Station though! If they ever opened it up fully as part of a heritage day we'd love to join in!
DISCLAIMER: Now for the official bit. This blog does not receive any paid promotions from the places mentioned above. We have not been approached to promote or act as spokespersons for any attraction mentioned within this post and this is simply a post intended to act as a day in the life of a couple on a cute date. All photos included are taken by ourselves and as such the rights for these images are ours, no links, brands, or companies mentioned otherwise belong or are associated with Phantom Adventures UK. We are responsible only for this blog. Opinions are our own and not influenced by any third party source..
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