WEST KENT RAILWAY - 1865
This was the second railway proposal submitted by the West Kent Railway.
Following the completion of the new main line running through Bromley in 1862 by the London Chatham and Dover Railway, a proposal for a further line was made, again using the name West Kent Railway. The line would start at Penge with a junction with the L, C & D R and then run through West Wickham to just south of Tatsfield, from where there would be two branches, one west to Oxted, the other east to Westerham. From West Wickham, a further short branch would pass just to the south of Hayes to Locksbottom and Farnborough.
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The routes of both the main line and the Farnborough branch are shown in these diagrams.
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In Farnborough the railway was to end slightly further to the south of the other earlier proposals, at about the place where Church Road meets the High Street. The map shows the new location, and also references the earlier West End of London and Crystal Palace proposal, now abandoned.
The precise point of termination is stated in the accompanying note to the bill to be
30 yards or thereabouts north of The George Inn, Farnborough, such orchard being numbered 39 in the said parish of Farnborough, on the plan of the West End of London and Crystal Palace Extension to Bromley and Farnborough, deposited .... November 1853...'
Oxted today has a busy station on the Southern Railway route from Victoria, between East Croydon and East Grinstead. Westerham was from 1881 the terminus of a branch off the South Eastern main line at Dunton Green, but this closed in 1962.