An interview with Peter Harding

               Cold, muddy and unappealing, the River Medway in Maidstone threatens to burst it's banks.

I'm in Maidstone to meet Peter Harding as Maidstone United play Aldershot Town. Peter who lives near Woking is a loyal Aldershot fan, whilst I am a Maidstone fan so it is an opportunity to meet up. (Skip this bit if you don't like football).

It's cold and I somehow manage to arrive two hours early but Angela Reed is there nevertheless, selling programs. Every club and society have them, wonderful people who give hours of their time unselfishly. Angela and her husband Bryan have played a huge part in the success of this club. Unfortunately Bryan a postman has to work longer hours now and misses most of the matches. Maidstone's new stand is being built in the background and when erected will bring the capacity up to 4000 to comply with Conference rules. Unfortunately the expense of close to £1,000.000.00 means that the players are part time and only train two evenings a week. Most of the teams in this league are full time professional.

                              A rare Maidstone attack. Psychedelic boots are de rigueur in 2017.

Aldershot were the first team to go bust after Accrington Stanley, in 1991-1992 they were demoted 5 divisions but kept their ground and recovered quickly (now they are pushing for a third spell in the football league). Maidstone went the same way about a month later, but they were demoted 10 divisions and did not even have a ground, so it has been a long slow recovery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXOkzy69zu0

'There is always someone worse awf than yourself!'
The above YouTube clip from an East Enders episode sums up the gloom Maidstone fans experienced. Dot is visiting her old stamping grounds in Kent reliving her hop picking days and Jim goes with her but soon gets bored and disappears into a pub.


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                   Peter Harding


Anyway I will not mention the score but I did get to meet Peter and had an easy chat with him. He described how he and his friends would place a penny on the line at Pattenden Siding and wait for a train to run over it, afterwards it would always be many times its original size. He let me email him the following questions which he has kindly answered. Peter also mentioned that he does the artwork for the covers of most of his books. I  had meant to take a photograph but I got distracted (fortunately I had a picture in advance).



1/ Peter I believe you grew up in Goudhurst near the station, do you have any personal memories of the old Hawkhurst Line?

1.    My family moved to Goudhurst in 1946 when I was two years old, my father had a shop in the village at the top of Clay Hill (the first shop in the village coming up from the station). The branch line to Hawkhurst was always part of our lives and in those days nobody ever thought that one day it would not be there, in fact Mr.Burgess of Burgess Stores in the village who at that time would have been in his mid to late sixties remembered the line being opened at Hope Mill and was actually there. As children we would walk the branch line on a Sunday afternoon (no trains on Sunday's except in Hop picking time) from Pattenden Sidings to Goudhurst Station and then up the mile or so to the village. I remember when the Queen Mother (who at that time was the Queen) visited the area to go to Beneden Hospital and review the hops, the whole school marched down to the station and waved union jacks as the train slowly passed through the station, the Queen gave us one of her royal waves!!!.

2/ Can you give us some reminiscences about the hop pickers who used to come to your area every year?

2.    When the hop pickers came they took over all the local villages and Goudhurst became like a mini Brighton with toffee apples and candy floss etc  for sale. They (the hop pickers) used to get up to no good at times (not all of them of course) and an extra copper was sent to the village, in fact the same chap stayed with us each year. They were lovely days and I could go on for ages with some of the stories involving the hop pickers.

3/ You have written a number of books about lost railways including some (to me) quite obscure lines such as'The Hellingly Hospital Railway' and 'The Bisley Camp Branch Line' how long have you been writing these books and what prompted you to start?

3.    I have been writing and publishing my booklets since 1982 when I published the first edition of the Hawkhurst Branch Line, at that time I didn't expect to do any more but, everyone started saying 'what are you doing next?' which made me carry on, I have published at least one booklet a year and have done second editions for most of them and even a third edition of the Hawkhurst booklet. I like to do the obscure lines like the Hellingly Hospital Railway which is one of my best selling publications although the Rye & Camber Tramway is without doubt my best selling one. A shop at Rye sold 400 copies in just over a month when I first published it.

4/ What are you working on now?

4.     I have just finished a second edition (now at the printers) of the Bulford Branch Line (in Wiltshire) which includes the Larkhill Military Railway (which went off the Bulford branch near Amesbury).

5/ How have sales been of 'The Hawkhurst Branch'? 

5.    The sales of the Hawkhurst Branch Line are going okay although things have slowed down a bit lately, I still think that £4.00 is not a bad price (good job my life doesn't depend on it as its only a hobby).

6/ I think you played a lot of football as a school boy around Kent and later you played for Aldershot is that correct?

6.     Football has always played a big part of my life, as a younger person I was a goalkeeper and played for my school at Ashford, Kent (Ashford South School where the former Kent cricket captain Alan Ealham was in my same class), the district boys team Ashford & Weald (I once played against Maidstone boys in the English Schools Shield on the old Maidstone London Road ground, in the Maidstone team was David Sadler who went on to play for Manchester United and England), I was meant to play for Kent Boys against Essex Boys but was ill and missed the game. I was signed on as an amateur for Arsenal after trials at Highbury but then broke my leg throwing a discus back at school!!!!!. After my leg mended, I was loaned out from Arsenal to Bexleyheath & Welling and played in the South East Counties Youth League against all the top Youth teams in London, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs etc.

At 19 I joined Aldershot and while playing for their 'A' team I was injured and lost one of my kidneys and my spleen. This meant my football career finished at 19 years old. I still watch Aldershot and I'm a season ticket holder.

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http://www.bluebell-shop.co.uk/mall/departmentpage.cfm/BlueBellRailwayShop/_132214/1/Peter%2520A%252E%2520Harding

Peter's books can be purchased from the Bluebell Railway bookshop, their webpage can be accessed by copying and pasting the above into your browser or by simply searching for 'Bluebell Railway bookshop'.

Images come to light of Sandy Lane Bridge (now buried)

Here the train would have just left Horsmonden Tunnel heading south towards Horsmonden Station in the deepest part of the cutting, the camera was placed high up above the locomotive's boiler thus obscuring the track bed so the pillars were somewhat taller than the picture suggests. The train's funnel hides part of the left hand arch and deep vegetation obscures the right side of the bridge.

This wonderful bridge rose about 45 feet above the track bed, it was never photographed because passengers never saw it (they only saw parts of it's piers from their windows). Being in such a deep cutting it was also inaccessible, and the dense vegetation tended to obscure the view anyway. There is only one stock photo known to exist which is in the British Railways archive and appears on page 114 of Brian Hart's book 'The Hawkhurst Line'. Nobody knows much about this bridge, even the Horsmonden historical society describe it as a 'small bridge'.


Although buried today the bridge is still used to carry cars and passengers along Back Lane as it is now called.

I managed to obtain this blurry image from a recently uploaded You Tube video taken from the drivers cab in 1958. Thanks to my daughter Louisa (who has paint on her p.c) for her help.

The full clip can be found here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO69U5Blvxo

This bridge must have been built in 1891 or early 1892 before Swigs Hole bridge for example because a half mile long embankment was built from North of the tunnel to Yew Tree Green road using the spoil from the cutting (which had to be removed first). Residents on the left of the bridge would have been stranded  having to make a long deviation to reach the village, so the engineers would have been obliged to build the bridge quickly. This was the first railway that Colonel Stephens worked on as resident engineer and important because the bridge was possibly his first major construction.

I have informed David Scully the Landscape and Biodiversity officer at Tunbridge Wells Council who was very interested, emailed the Colonel Stephens Society, and Yolanda Laybourne of the Hop Pickers Line Heritage Group who have been successful recently in generating council interest in the Hawkhurst Line.

Tunbridge Wells Historic Environment Desk Based Assessment for the PWH BL

I came across this assessment which was conducted in January 2016, it gives a lot of clues to the history of the Paddock Wood and Hawkhurst Branch Line since it's closure in 1961. There are also a lot of photographs of remaining structures and remnants, their significance and suggestions that some should receive listed buildings status. They even found some track which was never lifted, well worth a read! Please use the links below.

http://www.tunbridgewells.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/119307/33013-HPLHG-DBA-Volume-1-Report-low.pdf

http://www.tunbridgewells.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/119308/33013-HPLHG-DBA-Volume-2-Figures-v2_Part1.pdf


I see that the survey has recommended that some surviving structures (Swigs Hole Bridge at Horsmonden, the surviving station buildings and goods shed at Cranbrook, Badgers Oak Tunnel near Cranbrook Station and the goods shed at Hawkhurst) for preservation, I hope that Tunbridge Wells Borough Council do act on this recommendation before any other structures are lost.

I see that the enquiry was chaired by Yolanda Leybourne who has almost certainly pushed the council to conduct this investigation. A few years ago she tried to save the old engine shed from demolition on Hawkhurst Station's site. Over the last few years she has been working tirelessly to try to preserve the line as a walkway, Hawkhurst, Cranbrook, Goudhurst, and even Paddock Wood parish councils all said they would try to support the project, but I'm offering no prizes for guessing which parish council refused to have anything to do with it.
The Hop Pickers Line Project did obtain a grant for £10,000.00 from Tunbridge Wells district council to do some preliminary clearing work around Badgers Oak Tunnel and most landowners on the route said they were prepared to allow walkers to use the track bed, but one person did object so I don't know what the state of the project is now.

http://www.visithawkhurst.org.uk/directory/44175/the-hop-pickers-line-project/

Please see my posting on Back Lane Bridge for later updates.

The Hawkhurst Branch Line (3rd Edition)

Peter Harding emailed me recently to advise that the third edition of his book 'The Hawkhurst Line' has just been published and would I like a copy? We had been in touch last spring when I wrote to Network Rail, and I emailed him, (he was very kind and supportive).
I feel compelled to plug his booklet which is only available at the Bluebell Bookshop at present for £4.99 (see my book review blog).

As you can see the third edition (right) is very much like the second on the outside and both contain 32 pages with the same information, but he has managed to obtain a number of new pictures (some of which I have never seen).

                                 Above: A little about Horsmonden and Goudhurst Stations

The clarity of the photographs are also better when compared to the earlier edition.

Finchcocks Bridge and the shallow cutting

Just south of the A262 and Goudhurst station site the destruction seems to be a lot less, perhaps due to a lower population and the proximity of the Bedgebury and Finchcocks Estates. Here the line entered a cutting of about 8 - 10 feet as it continued slowly swerving south-east and bordering Finchcocks Estate, very conveniently there is a footpath parallel to it. It was easy for me to pop down a take a look.

Looking north from the top of the bank the line ran towards Goudhurst Station on up journeys.

Above top looking south and then north along the track bed, Goudhurst Station's tall up home signal would have once stood somewhere on the left of the track on the second picture being 175 yards away from Goudhurst station signal box . (Here the line was double track but the long siding ended just before the bridge).

Before I got here I had decided to dig down a little into the loam to see how deep the ballast was buried, but actually it still seems to be very apparent and recent mole hills have unearthed more, consequently there is very little vegetation growing here which I find very heartening. Surely more stones have been added since by the estate management otherwise this cutting would be full of trees and weeds and the ballast would be buried under layers of mud!

Finchcocks bridge (Bluecoats Bridge) appears together with the morning sun. Apart from Swigs Hall 
Farm bridge nearly three miles north, this is the first bridge that I have come across that is still standing.
(The railway track would have been single line again at this point as the bridge is only wide enough for 
one train).

Six sturdy steel girders reinforce the roof. These must have been added not so long ago to strengthen the bridge, you can see that the brick work below the joists has been disturbed. They seem to have been 
painted too to protect them from rusting.

The same reddish bricks are apparent as elsewhere in the railway's construction.

The bridge from the south looking up towards Goudhurst Station. The road crossed the line diagonally as is fairly apparent in this picture.

These are past their best, most of the wooden steps have rotted away and the handrail has collapsed. Still it shows that the cutting got deeper as here it is perhaps 18 - 20 feet deep.

25 metres or so after the bridge the cutting comes to an abrupt end as a large earth bank appears. All credit to the Finchcocks estate though they have preserved this 100 metre stretch of the old railway line admirably!

Looking east over Bluecoat Lane bridge.

The bricks on the parapet have suffered  (much as they used to be on the top of Back Lane Bridge). The  height of this parapet is about 5 1/2 feet, higher than that of Back Lane Bridge which I knew well, I think that these top layers of bricks were added later to raise the height.. 

 

Goudhurst Station

In 1892 the station for Goudhurst was completed being 1 mile west and nearly 100 meters below the village, the site had been chosen just north of the A262 and adjacent to the River Teise. The station was named 'Hope Mill' after the water mill in the vicinity. A week after a Board of Trade inspection the station opened together with Horsmonden, and Hope Mill became the first terminus.
For the navies and engineers there was little respite as they had to build the line to Cranbrook within a short time before the act of parliament allowing the railway expired. In late Victorian times 'railway mania' had largely ran its course and the county was criss crossed with lines. There were several railway companies enviously guarding their patch of Kent, yet there were still three towns towards the south east of the county not yet served by a railway; Cranbrook, Tenterden and the small town of Hawkhurst, if they could extend the line another six miles to the centre of Cranbrook its economic success was almost assured, and if necessary perhaps the SER could then get other Acts of Parliament later to extend east towards Tenterden.

The day of official opening saw this Cudworth 118 bedecked in a union flag and hops arrive in September 1892.  Holman Fred Stephens (in white suit and bowler hat) poses with the driver and fireman, the curate of Horsmonden, immediately behind him with cane, who was ambivalent about the railway and 'would do nothing to oppose it' has also wormed his way into the photograph. 

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A year after opening, the people of Goudhurst successfully petitioned the SER to change the name to 'Goudhurst Station'. The station was not a complete success due to the distance from the village it served, although a few private carriers began operating between the station and the village and people did expect to walk further in those days, still it served the local farms better.

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A 1950's photo showing the end of the hop picking season where a crowd of Londoners are standing on the platform with their prams and luggage, about to catch the train home.


At 41.1 miles from Charing Cross and 6.3 miles from Paddock Wood Station most of the traffic was farm traffic although surprisingly they still managed to boast 43 season tickets holders by 1949.

Unlike all the other stations Goudhurst had two tracks and two platforms so that up and down trains could pass each other without hindrance. The Station Master's house, ticket office, signal box etc were all on the west (or up) platform.
At the back of the station were two goods sidings but unlike Horsmonden there was also a goods shed and crane.
To the south the railway crossed the A262 road via a level crossing and then ran on between the Green Cross Inn and Finchcocks Estate. Being the fourth level crossing heading south on the line it was also by far the busiest road. Behind the up platform stood the goods yard and crane, there were three sidings. The River Teise ran very close and crossed the line under a bridge just north of the platform. Apart from the road to the south, fields surrounded the station. Being much more exposed than Horsmonden Station it must have been idyllic in summer but unpleasant on a windy winters day.

Another early photograph of the station with some of the staff and passengers featured, there appears to be a lot of baggage stacked at the end of the platform. 

This photo is looking down the line from the down platform, it gives a good view of some of the original oil lanterns (not all of which were completely erect after nearly seventy years service).

These were to be the last paying passengers from the 'Farewell to Steam' event the day after official closure. Crowds appeared with cameras for the last ever train. If only the railway had regularly received this amount of patronage it would have survived.

   

                                      

This sad photograph (taken in the summer of 1962 or 1963) shows the station after a year or two of dereliction, the station and goods yard behind it was soon to make way for two large houses and a swimming pool.
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Two houses were built in the 1970's over the station and goods yard sites. I popped down there with a friend a few days ago and managed to snap a few pictures.

Looking north over the road and site of the level crossing to where the station once stood.

Two images to the south looking into the overgrown track bed. In the top one part of the crossing keepers cottage roof is just discerable. It seems strange today that the SER would build a house just to employ someone exclusively to open and close a level crossing gate a few times a day when there were other station staff working at the station. Today no doubt one person would be employed to perform numerous functions.

The above oasts (now converted to houses) appear in a lot of old photos of the station. I think I was standing just about on the site of the signal box when I took it (part of which would now be underneath the road which has subsequently been widened).

Above Paula outside the Green Cross Inn (this place features on an early twentieth century map of the station, although it was called something else fifteen years ago when the present owners took over). Inside the staff are pleasant and the pub specialises in seafood, there are a number of old photographs on the wall showing the station as it was.

The trees on the extreme right border the track bed.

 The local's were very friendly too, especially as fish was on the menu. This cat was very well behaved actually he just hung around and feigned indifference but didn't pester us.

Two images looking into the sight of the track bed taken from the beer garden of the Green Cross Inn, (the line ran down here in a slight cutting, as soon it would cross under a bridge).

Smallbridge Level Crossing Horsmonden

About another 600 metres down from Brick Kiln Lane Bridge was the very narrow and quiet Smallbridge Road (presumably named after the small bridge that once crossed the Teise a little to the east). This is still just about within Horsmonden parish. A third level crossing was situated here, with the same style of crossing keepers cottage as those further north. This one, like the other two has had significant extensions added.

Looking west towards Smallbridge crossing site, the keepers cottage is on the left (south of the road).

The only sign of it's existence today is the raised road at the point where the level crossing stood.

And looking east, the bump in the road is less obvious here but the scratches on the tarmac from vehicle exhausts give testament to it's existence. Here the crossing keepers cottage is on the right. It was difficult to photograph as the occupants had allowed a high hedge to grow up. The vehicle in the distance parked up on a verge is mine, we actually met no cars at all while we were here.

Following the track bed north would take you through this garage towards Horsmonden. Apart from this section of private property the track bed is now all farmers fields to Brick Kiln Lane.

And south through this shed towards Goudhurst

The line ran very near the crossing keepers cottage and parallel to a field, it was on a slight embankment which must have been removed by the house owners at some point in order to be level with the rest of the garden. The google maps street view is much clearer as the garden was more open then, there had to be an embankment to compensate for the slight rise of the land to the south. After this section of private drive the track bed continues south to Goudhurst station site about 1,350 meters through farmland.

This is the adjoining farmers field looking south, you can see how the land rises slightly.

This is the only image that I could get of the crossing keepers cottage (if you are really interested, see Google street view for a better image). The central part of the house is the original. The finial at the top of the eaves has disappeared but the house is constructed of red brick and there is a bay window downstairs. In most cases the crossing keepers were expected to close the crossing gates to the road ten minutes before each train was due, but here the road was so quiet that there was actually heavier traffic on the railway. The gates were usually therefor shut to the road until a car arrived in which case I suppose the driver would have to hoot their horn to attract the crossing keeper's attention.

A few hundred meters east of the line is the River Teise the old 'smallbridge' appears to have been replaced with a modern bridge. This is looking south upstream, it is summer and has hardly rained so there is little water.

Above, looking north, downstream towards Horsmonden, as water streams over pebbles the iron in the soil is very apparent.