Rosherville Halt was a railway station on the

Gravesend West Line The Gravesend West Line was a short railway line in Kent that branched off the Swanley to Chatham line at Fawkham Junction and continued for a distance of 5 miles (8 km) to Gravesend where the railway company constructed a pier to conne ...

which was built to serve the popular

Rosherville Gardens Rosherville Gardens was a 19th-century pleasure garden in a disused chalk pit in Northfleet, Kent, England. After being laid out in 1837, it stood for seventy years, and was finally closed to the public just before the First World War. Structu ...

, a

pleasure garden A pleasure garden is a park or garden that is open to the public for recreation and entertainment. Pleasure gardens differ from other public gardens by serving as venues for entertainment, variously featuring such attractions as concert halls, ...

Gravesend Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, situated 21 miles (35 km) east-southeast of Charing Cross (central London) on the Bank (geography), south bank of the River Thames and opposite Tilbury in Essex. Located in the diocese of Ro ...

which closed in 1910. The station survived a further 23 years before itself closing in 1933.

History

The route of the Gravesend West branch through Gravesend adjoined the famous Rosherville Pleasure Gardens which had opened in 1839 on land leased by the Rosher family who gave their name to the popular attraction. Although the Gardens were already served by steamer, the

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 ...

decided to open a station in the hope of attracting some of their custom. It was an initially successful venture with 14,000 people visiting Rosherville Gardens on

Whit Sunday Whitsun (also Whitsunday or Whit Sunday) is the name used in Britain, and other countries among Anglicans and Methodists, for the Christian High Holy Day of Pentecost. It is the seventh Sunday after Easter, which commemorates the descent of the ...

in 1886, many of whom arrived by rail. However, the steamers were not going to give up their passengers without a fight and began to undercut the fares charged by the railway company. In the event, the popularity of Rosherville Gardens was on the wane and it eventually closed in 1910. Dwindling traffic led to the station being downgraded to an unstaffed halt in 1928, before eventually closing in 1933. As with

Southfleet Southfleet is a small village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the borough of Dartford in Kent, England. The village is located three miles southwest of Gravesend, Kent, Gravesend, while the parish includes within its boundaries the ...

and

Longfield Longfield is a village in the Borough of Dartford, Kent, England. It is located 6 miles south east of Dartford and the same distance south-west of Gravesend. History The place in Kent is recorded as ''Langanfelda'' in the Saxon Charters of ...

stations, Rosherville Halt was situated in a

cutting Cutting is the separation or opening of a physical object, into two or more portions, through the application of an acutely directed force. Implements commonly used for wikt:cut, cutting are the knife and saw, or in medicine and science the scal ...

near a road overbridge from which a footbridge led down to a single

island platform An island platform (also center platform, centre platform) is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway interchange. Island platforms are popular on ...

. Rosherville lay just to the west of a bridge carrying the A226 Dartford - Gravesend road over the line. The covered footbridge complete with two generously wide staircases to accommodate the expected traffic to Rosherville Gardens led from the station buildings at ground level to the platform. Two wooden canopy sections were installed on the platform, and a

signal box In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

was installed in a recess in the brick retaining wall on the down side of the station. A stationmaster's house was sited some distance from the main station buildings, overlooking the cutting.

Post-closure

The signal box was removed following closure and the ground level buildings were subsequently converted into domestic use. The platform buildings remained intact until the mid-1960s. The line through the station was closed in 1968 when freight traffic ceased at Gravesend West. What remained was swept away when the trackbed of the Gravesend Branch from Vale Road as far as Gravesend West was converted into the A2260 Thames Way. The cutting was deepened and widened requiring the demolition of the dilapidated stationmaster's house. Only the former railway tunnel to the north-east of the station, now part of the A2260, remains as the surviving remnant of the railway which once served Rosherville.Subterranea Britannica, "Rosherville Halt".
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References

{{coord, 51.4417, 0.3551, type:railwaystation_region:GB, display=title Disused railway stations in Kent Former London, Chatham and Dover Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1886 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1933 History of Gravesend, Kent