The Hundred of Hoo Railway is a railway line in Kent, England, following the North Kent Line from Gravesend before diverging at Hoo Junction near Shorne Marshes and continuing in an easterly direction across the Hoo Peninsula, passing near the villages of Cooling, High Halstow, Cliffe and Stoke before reaching the Isle of Grain and the container port on its eastern tip, Thamesport. There used to be a short branch line leading from Stoke Junction to the coastal town of Allhallows but this closed from 4 December 1961, the same date on which the Hundred of Hoo line was closed to passenger services.
Early history Authorisation
The first authorisation to construct a railway on the Hoo Peninsula was obtained by a group of local businessmen who sponsored the passing of the (28 & 29 Vict. c. ccclxxv) which provided for the construction of a branch line leaving the South Eastern Railway's Gravesend to Strood line at Denton. The line would head eastwards across land north of Cliffe to reach the Isle of Grain. However, the major railway companies operating in the area, South Eastern Railway (SER) and the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR) were not interested in the project and as a result it failed to secure the necessary funding.
The opening of Queenborough railway station on 15 May 1876 by the LCDR which offered a sea link to the Dutch town of Flushing prompted the SER to investigate possibilities for a rival link to the continent. On 16 April 1878 the SER's engineer, Francis Brady, reported back to his employer on the feasibility of constructing a railway from a point near Gravesend and the North Kent Line to the village of Stoke, a distance of 9 miles. The estimated cost was £72,000. A 5% return was projected, the belief being that Gravesend's proximity to London would make it a more desirable outlet for the distribution of goods intended for the Kent area, rather than the LCDR's Chatham station.
The Hundred of Hoo Railway Company was therefore formed and a second authorisation for the line obtained in the form of the (42 & 43 Vict. c. cxxvi) which received royal assent on 21 July 1879.
Extension to Port Victoria Seizing the opportunity to provide a sea outlet for goods to Europe, the SER announced its intention to open a new port on the Isle of Grain with a service to Belgium. This new service would compete with the LCDR's own Queenborough and Sheerness outlets. The SER was hopeful that its service would be preferred over that of the LCDR, the proposed route from Charing Cross to the new port was 40 miles, some 12 miles less than the LCDR's Victoria to Queenborough or Sheerness service.
The (43 & 44 Vict. c. cxvii) was passed by the House of Lords on 14 July 1880 authorising an extension of 3 miles from Stoke to the new Victoria Port where a pier would be constructed. Following a call for tenders, the quotation of a certain Thomas A. Walker was accepted, he having proposed £14,421 for the railway extension (including a bridge over Higham Canal) and £18,953 for the pier. The railway company was absorbed into SER in August 1880.
Opening and initial services A single track line as far as Sharnal Street opened on 1 April 1882. The remainder of the line to Port Victoria opened on 11 September 1882.
When the line opened, the scope for passenger services was limited - the entire population of the sparsely populated Hoo Peninsula was only 3,405. Nevertheless, in October 1891 there were 9 daily trains, approximately one every two hours from 6am on weekdays and Saturdays, and three on Sundays. The total journey time was 1 hour. Down trains would depart from Gravesend and call at Sharnal Street and Port Victoria, before a ferry would take passengers across the River Medway on to Sheerness. From Sheerness passengers could take the Medway Ferry Service to Folkestone and then on to the continent.
The ferry service was intermittent. It was discontinued in 1895 due to dwindling returns and then reinstated some years later; when there was no service to Port Victoria, trains terminated at Sharnal Street. The initial returns for the line as a whole were below expectations: without a direct ferry connection to the continent there was little to attract customers to this remote region. Nevertheless, the farming community on Hoo took well to the new railway and Sharnal Street station saw good business.
New stations
By 1906 it had become clear that Port Victoria would not develop into a major continental sea port and the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SECR) began to look for new opportunities to bring in revenue. In July that year, seven wooden halts were constructed: Milton Road, Milton Range, Denton, Uralite, Beluncle, Middle Stoke and Grain Crossing. Uralite halt was named after the nearby British Uralite Ltd complex which had opened in 1899 and manufactured drainage pipes from wet asbestos paste. On 1 May 1915, the little-used Milton Road Halt was closed. The branch line to Allhallows-on-sea was opened on 16 May 1932, followed on 17 July 1932 by opening of another halt at Stoke Junction. A new station opened at Grain on 3 September 1951, replacing Grain Crossing Halt, which closed to rail traffic on 11 July 1951 and passengers on 3 September 1951 - a bus service being provided between those dates. The new Grain station was west of Grain Crossing Halt.
Port Victoria and pier
Construction Port Victoria station was located at the head of the long pier. Ships of up to draught were able to draw-up alongside to take passengers and goods, irrespective of the tides, thanks to the pier's deep water front. A 'temporary' hotel was constructed near the pier at a cost of £1,900.
The station became popular with the Royal Family. This was because it was an isolated location. Both the Royal Train and the Royal Yacht were regular visitors to Port Victoria.
Maintenance In 1896 it was discovered that the pier needed urgent remedial works, marine worms having infested the wooden piles. Extensive works were undertaken only for the pier to be damaged again, this time by a heavy storm on 28 November 1896. Further repairs were necessary and the service to Port Victoria became intermittent, closing in the winter months with trains terminating at Sharnal Halt. In 1901 the wooden piles of the pier were encased in concrete in an attempt to prevent further infestation, but problems continued after the area around the pier was dredged, thereby exposing the uncased parts of the piers to investigation.
1899-1918 Following the merger of the SER and LCDR in 1899, Port Victoria found itself firmly in second place behind Queenborough for traffic to the continent. It was only when Queenborough was unavailable that Port Victoria saw regular sustained use. This was the case when a fire caused serious damage to Queenborough Pier on 19 July 1900 and services were diverted via Port Victoria for the best part of the next three years - the busiest period in its history.
Following the outbreak of the First World War, the Admiralty took over Port Victoria on 11 August 1914 at a rent of £200 per annum for a lease of 14 years. A siding to Yantlet Creek was laid and artillery testing was carried out there. The Royal Naval Air Service took over the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club's headquarters which were located near the pier.
Decline As the popularity of the new extension to Allhallows, opened in 1932, began to grow, the further decline of Port Victoria became ever more pronounced. During the 1930s, it saw only two trains per day, mainly for the workmen at the refineries on the Isle of Grain - the Medway Oil and Storage Company had been based at Elphinstone Point at the entrance to Colemouth Creek since 1923. Nevertheless, the Flushing Night Mail continued to dock at the port.
In 1932 further concerns about the stability of the pier led to the buffer being brought further forward so that only of railway covered the pier. The station was replaced the same year by a modest structure at a cost of £395. The following year the old station buildings on the pier were demolished and new fencing was erected to create a gangway on the pier in order to provide access to the navigation lights. The 1930s also saw the demolition of the old Royal Corinthian Yacht Club.
The end finally came in 1941 when its seaward end (measuring some ) was demolished and sold for scrap to the Admiralty for £841 5s. Only a short length at the shore end now remained. Both Port Victoria Station and the previous station, Grain Crossing Halt, closed to rail traffic (but not passengers) on 11 June 1951. A new station, called "Grain", which became the line's terminus, was constructed in their place. The Port Victoria Hotel was one of the last pier buildings to be swept away in 1951.
Extension to Allhallows
Historical context With the failure of Port Victoria to become the valuable European seaport that had been expected, alternative means of increasing the revenue from the line were sought. Such an opportunity seemed to present itself in the early 1920s with the popularity of seaside resorts as holiday destinations for middle and working-class families with the financial means to take an annual holiday or weekend breaks. Resorts such as Brighton, Torquay and Blackpool had long been popular with seasiders since the mid-19th century, but it was only with the arrival of the railway that factory workers in London could enjoy the privileges previously reserved for the richer classes and use their free weekends to escape from their urban environment.
The Southern Railway (SR), which had taken over the SECR's activities in 1923 following the grouping ordered by the Railways Act 1921, sought to profit from this new market by offering a seaside destination within easy reach of London which would rival the London, Midland and Scottish Railway's line to Southend-on-Sea. The small village of Allhallows, population 261 in the 1880s, was identified as the only feasible location for a new seaside resort in North Kent - Herne Bay being judged too far from London and Leysdown-on-Sea on the Isle of Sheppey not having a direct rail service.
Authorisation and construction In June 1929, a Ministry of Transport railway order was obtained by the SR and construction began in August 1931. The branch line to Allhallows was 1¾ miles long, joining the existing line between Middle Stoke and Grain Crossing Halts. Like the line to Port Victoria, the connection with Allhallows would also consist of a single track.
An article published in April 1932 in the Southern Railway Magazine indicated the SR's aspirations for the line: "[n]ear the small village of Allhallows, amid fields where cattle graze and the ploughman walks his furrow, workmen are busy constructing roads and laying the main drains and conduits for the gas, water, telephone and electric light services to houses of which not a brick has yet been laid. In contrast to the urban development of an earlier day, the prospective house-purchaser (and season-ticket holder) at Allhallows will approach his future home from a modern reinforced concrete carriageway, instead of stumbling through the ruts of an unmade road."
The Allhallows-on-Sea Estate Company was incorporated with the intention of transforming the flat, featureless, windswept marshland in the area into a new holiday resort. The SR had a financial interest in the new company and worked closely with it in the construction of the line. The new company 'donated' land for use as railway and contributed £20,000 towards the construction of the line.
Opening and early days