Woolwich Arsenal Station

 

I realised that it’s some time since I wrote up a railway station and that the last one I did was Woolwich Dockyard. So, this week I’m going to do Woolwich Arsenal station which has had many rebuilds – I’m rather afraid that this whole article is just going to be a list of building changes.

Obviously a station at Woolwich was discussed from the start of plans for a railway into Kent via Greenwich. As various proposals were made it  emerged that Woolwich itself was not particularly grateful and in fact was quite hostile to the railway, Vincent in ‘Records of the Woolwich District’ quotes at length a report of a meeting held in 1836 in which “a respectable private meeting of proprietors and other inhabitants of Woolwich ..... adopted measures in opposition to the project for a railroad from Greenwich to Gravesend’.  They objected that the railway would be in a cutting through the centre of the town and that “no such excavation or cut has ever been attempted through a town so densely populated’.  A leader in this protest was Lewis Davis - who we’ve met before in connexion with water and gas supplies in Woolwich.  It was resolved that the line would be a nuisance and prevent proper drainage and cause difficulties in the supply of gas and water -and they agreed to oppose any legislation.

As late as 1841 The Woolwich Commissioners were voting never to address Colonel Landmann again

The railway was eventually built in the late 1840s as part of the South Eastern Railway’s North Kent Line with trains running through the Blackheath Tunnel to Charlton. They then ran from Charlton to Woolwich and then proceeding to Kent - thus avoiding Greenwich entirely

Woolwich Arsenal Station was opened in 1849. The North Kent line had only settled on this route and location in 1846, wanting it principally because it was at the eastern edge of the parish, where it could serve the Arsenal.  It was built on the site of Pattison's chalk pit. Vincent gives a great deal of detail about the location of this pit and includes maps – which are unintelligible in terms of what would it is like today.  ¬¬¬¬ He points out that several of the stations built on the North Kent Line in this area were constructed in various gravel or chalk pits which proliferated along the route of the line.  The station was the primary one on the North Kent route serving the Woolwich as the largest town. 

The Kent Rail web site (https://www.kentrail.org.uk/) reports the state of works on the line in the Woolwich area before opening.  Interestingly line inspections for the Board of Trade were carried out by Royal Engineers. From reports from June 1849 it appears that work on the Woolwich section was lagging behind. A second inspection in July revealed that the section of line through Woolwich was covered in rubbish and building materials and it was not recommended for opening. Later it was reported that although major works were essentially finished, heavy rain had caused cuttings to flood. It was suggested that trains should be restricted to a moderate speed.

 

When the line opened it was in an open cutting and on the corner of Woolwich New Road and what is now called Vincent Street. It did not face onto the main New Road but was on the north side of Vincent Street.  opposite the Bull public house.  It was designed to plans by the company engineer, Peter William Barlow, with elevations by the company architect, Samuel Beazley and It was built by John Kelk.  It had a five bay single-storey front and steps down to two platforms on the lower-level rail lines in their cutting. These original buildings survived into the 1970s. The station was first called just ‘Arsenal’, then ‘Royal Arsenal’, then ‘Woolwich Arsenal Station’.

The South Eastern Railway used the area around the Station as an important place go keep locomotives when they were not being used as an extension of the complex at Bricklayers Arms. This was on the ‘’up’’ side and included an engine shed and, later, a turntable. On the ‘’down’’ side were three sidings, with a shed used for goods. Although Plumstead was the main hub for traffic to and from the Royal Arsenal there were a number of other sidings at Woolwich. These lines were controlled by a signal box in the style of the South Eastern Railway, with their trademark clapboard with sash windows.

By 1867 over 3,000 passengers a day were travelling from Arsenal station to London, and it was also busy on Sundays with trippers bound for Gravesend.

In 1905 all this infrastructure was removed and in 1905, W Patterson & Sons Ltd rebuilt the layout to a complete transformation. The ‘up’ side main offices were enlarged and the ticket office shifted to street level and above the lines.  It now faced onto Woolwich New Road and was set back behind a canopy with a carriage forecourt.  Access became easier by the installation of iron staircases. The goods shed was single-storey and had a pitched roof, curved to match the platforms. The platform surfaces were lined with single-storey yellow brick walls, with canopies – and they still remain.  Buildings which had been adjacent to the first station were replaced with a single-storey brick range and that still survives as 3 Vincent Road, now mainly storage and offices for local businesses. The opening of the of Slade Green Depot in 1899  meant the end for Woolwich Arsenal’s shed and turntable – both were taken out of use in 1905.

In 1926 the Southern Railway installed electrification as far as Dartford. Steam trains remained in use for Kent Coast excursions and goods traffic, and were still used in the sidings.

In 1926 following electrification the ‘Smoke Hole’ was removed and the space filled.  It had been the source of protests from local traders and the public for nearly 80 years. When the railway was built the earlier fears that it would go through the town in a cutting became a reality and in fact happened. In order to allow for the smoke to be vented from the locomotives running below ground level an area of street which was left open and grated over.  This was in the road in what is now General Gordon Square - in front of the old Woolwich Equitable building - and in those days there was no General Gordon Square. Just a street with shops and houses and so on

In 1965, under British Railways goods traffic ended and by then steam trains had vanished on this area. The goods shed was demolished, but its southern elevation was kept. In the 1970s the original Arsenal station building was still standing in Vincent Road, with a causeway running down to the railway tracks and there was a car park on the site of the locomotive sheds and sidings.  The signal box lasted until 1970 when control was transferred to a temporary panel at St John’s station

The station was replaced again in 1992–3 with a high-tech pavilion, commissioned by Network South-East and designed by British Rail’s Architecture and Design Group, led by Nick Derbyshire and Alastair Lansley.  It has a thin wing-like canopy roof, supported on reconstituted Portland stone with steel columns on Cornish-granite bases and floors. A steel and glass beacon rises above the booking hall, which was cited in Architectural Review as ‘a lighthouse of urbanity’.  There are railings and stairs, but these are apparently never used, nor is the beacon ever lit.

On the up platform there is a 1993 terracotta relief mural, ‘Workers of Woolwich’, by Martin Williams, depicting work in the Arsenal, and funded by British Rail’s Community Unit with the University of Greenwich and Greenwich Council.

On 20th May 2005 the ‘’down’’ side platform was closed to passengers, to allow more major modification work. The South Eastern Railway designed canopies were replaced and there were new toilets, lifts, and an additional platform. The original ‘’down’’ side retaining wall was demolished and a new one built. Passengers wanting to alight at Woolwich had to travel down to Plumstead, then return on a London-bound train until the ‘’down’’ platform re-opened in August 2006.

I’m sorry if this article has just been a list of building changes to the station - these seem to have been endless. It is an important station and some of the facilities which have come and gone have been equally important.  So I’m sorry if I’ve had no space for any human interest stories or events which have happened at the station - nor indeed has there been space to record the addition of the Docklands Light Railway - another time perhaps?