Cliff Top Entrance, Comprising Platform, Terrace Walls, Tunnel And Stairs To The Former Rosherville Gardens

Cliff Top Entrance to the Former Rosherville Gardens

This entrance structure comprises a platform, terrace walls, a staircase, and a tunnel, constructed in 1869 by the firm of James Pulham and Son. It is built partly in Pulhamite (the firm's artificial stone) over brick, clunch and plaster.

The platform features low cemented terrace walls with cement balustrading and panelled cemented piers that originally served as plinths for statues, retaining some ovolo-moulded decoration. The staircase comprises tall cement-rendered brick retaining walls and two flights of stairs, the lower at right angles to the upper. The lower flight leads into a steeply-sloping tunnel approximately 17 metres long, excavated from the chalk cliffs with a round-headed roof. The tunnel interior contains blank round-headed arcading of seven bays on each side, with a flight of steps running through it. The roof and walls are covered in white plaster with a rough decorative finish. The arch walls are constructed of clunch blocks, except for an arch on the north side, which is filled with twentieth-century brickwork; this arch originally provided access to an Ionic temple, no longer present. At the base of the steps, the tunnel turns northwards and features a round-headed alcove that probably once housed a statue. The round-headed exit terminates abruptly approximately four metres up the cliff face, as a result of later earth clearing which removed the lower level of the quarry.

Rosherville Gardens were laid out in 1837 in an excavated chalk pit owned by Jeremiah Rosher (1765–1848), who recognised the potential of chalk extraction by the Thames at Northfleet for cement manufacture. From 1830 Rosher began building a new town, called Rosherville, to capitalise on Gravesend's popularity with day-trippers arriving by steamboat from London. The architect H E Kendall was employed to lay out an esplanade and construct a hotel; by 1837 the quay walls and a wooden pier were completed. Although the Rosherville Hotel and some Italianate houses were built, the town did not develop further.

In 1837 Rosher leased the excavated chalk pit for 99 years to George Jones, a businessman from Islington, who established the Kent Zoological and Botanical Gardens Company. The gardens included a terrace, bear pit, archery ground, lake, maze, flower beds, statues, a lookout tower on a rock spur, and winding paths. Originally intended to appeal to wealthy, cultured visitors, the gardens attracted insufficient numbers in this category, forcing Jones to lower prices and provide more varied entertainment. From 1842 the gardens were renamed Rosherville Gardens and became enormously successful. Visitors arrived by steamboat at Rosherville Pier and entered through an original entrance on the north-east side of the gardens, a short walk from the pier.

In 1869, a new entrance was constructed from London Road to the south of the gardens. James Pulham and Son's work at this entrance is documented, and the structure incorporates Pulhamite. A nineteenth-century photograph shows a large platform at the cliff top with balustrading and piers forming plinths for four classical statues and urns flanking the staircase. A circular temple with a domed roof and Ionic columns appears at mid-height on the steps, and below is the cambered lower entrance giving access to the gardens in the excavated quarry at the cliff base.

Following George Jones's death in 1872, the gardens passed to the Rosherville Gardens Company Ltd. The sinking of the Princess Alice paddle steamer in 1878, with the loss of over 640 lives, marked the beginning of the gardens' decline, which was compounded by the availability of affordable seaside travel by railway. In 1886 Rosherville Halt railway station was built nearby specifically to serve the gardens, with visitors entering via the 1869 south entrance.

Rosherville Gardens went bankrupt in 1900, reopened after changes in 1903, but continued losing money and closed as a pleasure garden in 1913. In 1914 the gardens were used as a filming location by the Magnet Film Company, though further filming plans did not materialise and the site was closed completely by the First World War. In 1924 five acres were sold to T Henley's Cable Works, which had occupied land between the gardens and the Thames since 1906. Henley's purchased the remaining land in 1939 and the gardens site was entirely cleared, with the clifftop entrance sealed. All twentieth-century buildings on the former gardens site have since been removed.

The cliff top entrance first appears on the 1897 Ordnance Survey map, showing the terrace walls and staircase leading into the tunnel, with a covered walkway approaching it. By 1908 the walkway is no longer shown. By 1939 the staircase is no longer depicted.

The front terrace wall, some balustrading, and the statues have been lost, though the remaining terrace walls with some balustrading, the staircase, and the tunnel survive. This is the only remaining structure of Rosherville Pleasure Gardens, and one of only three Victorian pleasure gardens mentioned in recent national publication on the subject.