Martin Mill railway station serves the small village of

Martin Mill Martin Mill is a village in east Kent, England. It takes its name from the nearby village of Martin. Martin Mill railway station is on the Dover to Deal railway line. The population of the village was, similarly to Martin, included in the civil pa ...

in East

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

. The station and all trains serving it are operated by

Southeastern The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

. The booking office is open only on weekday mornings however a ticket machine (card only) on the Dover-bound platform caters for out-of-hours ticketing. For many years the ticket office acted as a Post Office for the local community.

Services

All services at Martin Mill are operated by

using and

EMUs Emus may refer to: * Emu The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the g ...

. The typical off-peak service in trains per hour is: * 1 tph to

London St Pancras International St Pancras railway station (), also known as London St Pancras or St Pancras International and officially since 2007 as London St Pancras International, is a central London railway terminus on Euston Road in the London Borough of Camden. It i ...

* 1 tph to During the peak hours, the station is also served by a number of services between Ramsgate and London Charing Cross via .

History

The station was opened on 15 June 1881 by the Dover and Deal Joint Railway when it opened the line from an end-on connection at to Buckley Junction near

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...

. The line was the only one jointly owned by the rival South Eastern Railway and

London, Chatham and Dover Railway The London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR or LC&DR) was a railway company in south-eastern England created on 1 August 1859, when the East Kent Railway was given parliamentary approval to change its name. Its lines ran through London and nor ...

and remained independent until the

Grouping Grouping may refer to: * Muenchian grouping * Principles of grouping * Railways Act 1921, also known as Grouping Act, a reorganisation of the British railway system * Grouping (firearms), the pattern of multiple shots from a sidearm See also ...

. The line has been described as one of the more spectacular in southern England with Martin Mill at the apex on a 400-foot-high plateau. The station was built with two platforms either side of a double track, a signal box was located to the south with a goods yard to the south east. The goods yard could handle most types of goods including live stock and it was equipped with a 10-ton crane. The station was host to a Southern Railway

camping coach Camping coaches were holiday accommodation offered by many railway companies in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland from the 1930s. The coaches were old passenger vehicles no longer suitable for use in trains, which were converted to ...

from 1938 to 1939. Two camping coaches were positioned here by the Southern Region from 1954 to 1959, then three coaches in 1960 and 1961 then they were replaced by three ''Pullman'' camping coaches from 1962 to 1967.

Military history

Martin Mill also served as an important station during both the

First First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

and

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

s. During the construction of

Dover Harbour The Port of Dover is a cross-channel ferry, cruise terminal, maritime cargo and marina facility situated in Dover, Kent, south-east England. It is the nearest English port to France, at just away, and is one of the world's busiest maritime pa ...

in 1897 a single track branch was constructed to bring in materials from Martin Mill. The track ran over the surface of the high chalk plateau parallel with the Dover-Deal main line, before climbing up to the summit just at the entrance to Guston tunnel. From there, it ascended to the cliff top, 350 ft above sea level. It then descended in a zig-zag formation on a vertiginous shelf which was cut into the cliff, leading down to the eastern part of the harbour. The route was reopened during both wars, and operated mainly by

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

to deploy mounted artillery on the cliff edge. During the Second World War, the branch served the many gun batteries along the white cliffs between Dover and St Margarets including the two 14 inch guns/cannons nicknamed ''Winnie'' (after

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...

) and ''Pooh'' (after the fictional bear). The military railway was also used by three railway guns, ''Gladiator'', ''Sceneshifter'', and ''Piecemaker'' which were WW1 railway gun carriages bearing their original gun names but carrying 13.5" naval guns. There were three curved firing spurs on the military railway designed for use by the rail guns. During the war the batteries controlled the Dover Straits, but the larger guns fired into France, mainly at the numerous German gun batteries who were shelling the Dover area from August 1940. This line also ran down to

along a cliff road.

References

External links

{{coord, 51.171, N, 1.348, E, type:railwaystation_region:GB, display=title Dover District Railway stations in Kent DfT Category E stations Former Dover and Deal Joint Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1881 Railway stations served by Southeastern 1881 establishments in England