Station Forecourt.

The station was built in 1842 as Maidstone Road Halt, with a level crossing on Maidstone Road. But for a local farmer’s protest, it would have been built elsewhere at Monckton’s Crossing. A community built up around the station, and developments were rapid. In 1844 the line to Maidstone was built, the station being renamed Paddock Wood, and in 1845 the road bridge was built. Around the same time, the Maidstone Road Inn (later the Railway Inn) was built, as well as the Station Master’s House.

Merged photograph of the two. Paddock Wood U3A 2018 ©

Paddock Wood Railway Station

The original main station building was built on the north side of the track and in the old photograph you can see the outline of the roof of this impressive building above what now forms the main station on the south side of the track. It was designed by Decimus Burton in the Italianate style and, unlike the clapboard used on other stations along the line, it was built of splendid red brick over two storeys. The structure also incorporated the Station Master’s house.

Photograph of the original Paddock Wood Station©

The extensive investment in the construction of the station, which was on the same scale as Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells and Ashford, shows the importance S.E.R. placed on this station. Three other indicators of this importance are demonstrated by local directories that show entries for a hotel in 1891, a station refreshment room also in 1891 and W.H. Smiths at the station in 1909.

Sadly the original Decimus Burton building was demolished in 1968 when planning started to develop the north side to house a Transfesa Continental Freight Depot which opened in 1973.

Initially the station was primarily used for goods and by the end of the nineteenth century Paddock Wood had become an established hub for a railway network of branch lines through the Weald. It had also become the major centre of the hop growing industry. In a business that was suffering decline under the threat of foreign imports and a desire for lighter beers elsewhere in the country, the business here went from strength to strength. It could be that the railway was the very thing that enabled hop growing here to go against national trends with easy access for hop pickers from London every year, quick and cheap movement of the hops out to the local breweries and the ready access to the London markets.

Padddock Wood Station 2018. Paddock Wood U3A©

Before the arrival of the railway in 1842, this was a rural farming area and any transport of goods would have had to rely on the poor roads and movement by boat along the River Medway. The building of the railway provided a fast and cheap way to transport bulky shipments of the agricultural produce direct to London or the coast and, in the case of goods such as wool, on across London to the north of England. Milk churns were loaded on to early morning passenger trains for Tonbridge and then on to horse drawn carts for delivery around the town.

Freight transport slowly declined over the years and, apart from a brief renaissance with the opening of the Transfesa Depot in 1973, Paddock Wood became more and more reliant on passenger transport.

Merged image of the two. Paddock Wood U3A 2018©

Arguably many would not be living on Paddock Wood if it were not for the train station.

One family moved to the area in 1956 and in 2012 for the Diamond Jubillee brochure, David Sargison recorded those memories within a biography of the station:

“The line to Hawkhurst closed in 1961 but not before I had the privilege of travelling on it from Horsmonden to Paddock Wood to pick up the train for a day out in London. To me the branch line train seemed laughably antiquated, with carriages like sheds on wheels pulled by a wheezing machine which chugged slowly through the orchards. I’d give anything to relive that experience!

It was the modern that appealed and the electric trains that took over on the line between Paddock Wood & London, ironically on they the Hawkhurst Line closed, were the way ahead to an eleven year old. These trains were fast clean and smooth, powered by an unseen force, with the added excitement of being able to stick your head out of the window without getting your eyes full of smuts. There was a guards van with a periscope to allow you to see across the roof at what was coming and toilets with a flap which opened revealing the track rushing past beneath your feet.”

David remembers the arrival of Eurostar in the 1990s and standing on the footbridge with his family “listening out for the distinctive whine and then if you were lucky getting a toot from the driver as the train passed underneath”.

In 2012 it was known that Paddock Wood had been chosen by Network Rail to develop a state to the art Training Centre. It stands today on the site of the old Hawkhurst line remembered above.

Paddock Wood Junction

As the railway network expanded, Paddock Wood grew in importance as a railway junction with a very busy railway yard that saw a constant movement of trucks full of coal, fruit and other produce. At the height of its importance, Paddock Wood station boasted three large areas of sidings which, by the start of the 20th century, saw a workforce of 12 shunters together with three-yard foremen handling 1,400 wagons a day in eight hour shifts.

It is possible that South Eastern Railway (SER) had always intended Paddock Wood to be a terminus for other stations and indeed the forward-thinking design of the original track layout would support this theory. From the very beginning, the two main platforms were separated by a quadruple track system enabling fast trains to overtake stopping trains and this track layout remains to this day making the original plans of SER very forward-thinking. Originally the main goods area was at the west end of the station area and incorporated two small wagon turntables; further more extensive sidings were developed on the eastern side to come into operation when the Maidstone branch line opened in 1846.

The photographs show clearly how little the main track layout has changed; the main alteration is the loss of the sidings. ©

Paddock Wood Station

Old St Andrews Church

The Elm Tree