The Cranbrook and Tenterden Light Railway was a railway line which was to have linked the Hawkhurst Branch Line with the

Rother Valley Railway The Rother Valley Railway (RVR) is a heritage railway project based at Robertsbridge in East Sussex, England. It takes its name from the original name for what later became the Kent and East Sussex Railway, running from Robertsbridge through ...

in Kent. Although it received authorisation for its construction, only a short section of it was ever built. This section is open today as part of the

Kent and East Sussex Railway The Kent and East Sussex Railway (K&ESR) refers to both a historical private railway company in Kent and East Sussex in England, as well as a heritage railway currently running on part of the route of the historical company. The railway runs b ...

History

With the opening of the

South Eastern Main Line The South Eastern Main Line is a major long-distance railway route in South East England, UK, one of the three main routes crossing the county of Kent, going via Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, Ashford and Folkestone to Dover. The other routes are the ...

between and Ashford in 1842; the railway between Ashford and Hastings in 1851, and the railway between Tonbridge and Hastings in stages between 1845 and 1853, a large tract of the

High Weald High may refer to: Science and technology * Height * High (atmospheric), a high-pressure area * High (computability), a quality of a Turing degree, in computability theory * High (tectonics), in geology an area where relative tectonic uplift to ...

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

and

East Sussex East Sussex is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Kent to the north-east, West Sussex to the west, Surrey to the north-west, and the English Channel to the south. The largest settlement ...

was left devoid of railways. In 1892, the Hawkhurst Branch Line was opened to . It was extended to the following year. The South Eastern Railway (SER) planned a line to link Cranbrook,

Tenterden Tenterden is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Ashford in Kent, England. The 2021 census published the population of the parish to be 8,186. Geography Tenterden is connected to Kent's county town of Maidstone by the A262 road an ...

and Ashford. These plans were abandoned by the SER but were taken up by the

(RVR) in November 1898 and promoted as the Cranbrook, Tenterden & Ashford Light Railway. The SER opposed the section of line from Tenterden to Ashford and this was dropped by the RVR. Construction of the Cranbrook & Tenterden Light Railway was authorised in December 1899. In 1900, the RVR opened as far as a station at , which was then known as

. The only part of the Cranbrook and Tenterden Light Railway ever built was the section between the original Tenterden station and Tenterden Town. This opened to traffic on 15 April 1903. On 4 January 1954, this section of line closed to passengers along with the rest of the K&ESR. It remained open for freight until 12 June 1961 when the remaining section of the K&ESR closed, apart from a short section at Robertsbridge. On 3 February 1974, the section of line between Tenterden Town and Rolvenden reopened as part of the preserved K&ESR.

Route

The line to Hawkhurst had bypassed the town of Cranbrook, with Cranbrook station being located in

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, almost from the town. The Cranbrook and Tenterden Light Railway would have commenced from a junction just to the north of Cranbrook station, heading in a generally north easterly direction to Cranbrook Town station, and then turning south easterly to serve Sissinghurst Road station and Benenden station, after which the line turned east to serve Rolvenden station and joining the Rother Valley Railway via a triangular junction between Tenterden and Tenterden Town stations. The line from the junction with the RVR to Tenterden Town station included a climb at 1 in 50. Although only this long section was built, the line was shown on maps included in the Kent & East Sussex Light Railway's Annual Reports until 1934.

References

{{KESR Abandoned light rail projects in the United Kingdom Rail transport in Kent Minor British railway companies Standard gauge railways in England