Bearsted Railway Station

Bearsted Railway Station

Railway station opened on 1 July 1884, designed by Arthur Stride for the Maidstone and Ashford Railway in their distinctive Gothic house style.

The station is constructed of polychrome brickwork: yellow brick in Flemish bond with red brick dressings, beneath a Welsh slate roof with four tall brick chimneystacks. Windows are wooden with pointed arches, sash frames and vertical glazing bars, set within rubbed brick voussoirs. Wooden fretted canopies are a characteristic feature.

The building comprises several connected elements. To the south (entrance front), a two-storey stationmaster's house stands to the east with one arched doorcase and a four-panelled door in a single-storey section at its east end; the left two bays project forward. The central single-storey ticket office is sheltered by a fretted wooden canopy supported on cast-iron brackets with mouchette and quatrefoil cutout designs to the spandrels. Behind are two windows and a central pointed arched doorway with double diagonally boarded door featuring cross braces. To the west is a single-storey waiting room of two bays with a large gable displaying a moulded cornice and two windows, followed by an attached end block with a smaller gable and arched doorcase. The north side is similar in character but has a deeper fretted canopy supported on four elaborate cast-iron columns with decorated spandrels. A detached single-storey waiting room stands on the opposite platform to the north of the main building, also built of yellow brick with red brick dressings. Its flat fretted wooden canopy is supported on two cast-iron brackets and two cast-iron columns of the company house type, and it retains the original wooden built-in bench.

The ticket office interior preserves the original kingpost roof with exposed thin rafters and diagonal boarding, and a wooden fireplace surround. The stationmaster's house retains its original staircase with stick balusters and chamfered newelpost with ball finial. The ground floor contains a black marble fireplace with pilasters, and three of the four bedrooms retain wooden fireplaces with cast-iron round-headed firegrates and built-in wooden cupboards. Original door architraves and a four-panelled door survive.

The Maidstone and Ashford Railway was constructed between 1880 and 1884 to provide a direct connection between Maidstone and Ashford. The station was built with contemporary goods facilities including a goods shed, weighbridge house, weighbridge and cattle dock to the west. When the railway was completed, it was purchased by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway and subsequently became part of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway in 1899. The station was renamed Bearsted and Thurnham in 1907 before reverting to Bearsted in 1980. The goods yard closed in 1964.