Former Goods Shed At Bearsted Railway Station

The former goods shed at Bearsted Railway Station was built in 1884 by Arthur Stride for the Maidstone and Ashford Railway, constructed between 1880 and 1884. It is a little-altered example of a goods shed in a Classical style.

The building is constructed of yellow brick in Flemish bond, with red brick dressings. It has a gabled slate roof. The plan is of a single-storey building of six bays, with a smaller, single-storey building attached to the east.

The east side has a gable with a red brick cornice and a blocked oculus. A wide opening on the left side is edged in black engineering brick and retains the original sliding door, ledged and with cross braces to the inside. The attached smaller building has a chimney, a moulded red brick cornice, a cambered headed window opening, and a door at its eastern end. The south side has a moulded red brick cornice, six recessed panels, with the four central ones containing cambered headed windows, and a plinth. The west end exhibits a moulded red brick cornice, a blank oculus, and a right side opening edged in black engineering brick, retaining the wooden sliding door. The north side features recessed panels with cambered window openings and large double doors in the centre.

Inside, brick pilasters define the bays along the side walls. The roof is wooden, featuring angled queen struts, collar beams, metal supports between the collar beams and tie beams, and clasped purlins.

The goods shed was built alongside a weighbridge house, weighbridge, and cattle dock. The Maidstone and Ashford Railway was purchased by the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway and later became part of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway in 1899. The building is shown on the 1897 Ordnance Survey map, and its footprint has remained unchanged, although the railway siding leading to it was removed. The goods yard closed in 1964, subsequently operating as a storage yard for a firm of coal merchants until the 1990s.

The building possesses group value, representing the best exemplar of the Maidstone and Ashford Railway as it is the only station on that line to retain the goods shed, station buildings, weigh house, weighbridge, and cattle dock.