One of the things I’ve been writing about regularly are Iocal railway stations. I’ve been working my way down the line from Greenwich going via Charlton and Woolwich This was South Eastern’s North Kent line which had gradually been built in stages from London Bridge to Rochester. So every so often, every few weeks, I take the next one in order - the last one, which I did a couple of weeks ago, was Plumstead - and so that means I need to do the next station –and surely. that is Abbey Wood which is the next station now .......... but, oh no! There was a very, very short lived ‘halt’ in between Plumstead and Abbey Wood. So obscure was it and so short lived that it’s not even mentioned on the vast Kent Rail website which seems to list every bit of railway infrastructure in Kent that you could possibly imagine - but there’s no mention of this one!
The Station -or Halt - concerned was called ‘Church Manorway’ and it was on the point at which the railway was crossed by the road of this name. But, beware - there is another Church Manorway a couple of miles further down the road at Erith. This one goes from Plumstead High Street down past the site of the ancient church of St Nicholas and then on into the marshes. In 1849 when the railway was built it crossed Church Manorway. These ‘manorways’ were footpaths whereby local people could go down into the marshes for whatever reason. Then in the early 1860s the Southern outfall sewer was built further down in the marsh than the railway and sort of parallel with it . On most maps Church Manorway apparently ended at the sewer . All of this is now covered by the town of Thamesmead.
Before and after the Great War and continuing there were numerous sports grounds in this area and near Church Manorway. Weekly there were football and cricket matches, and some other sports and the newspapers were full of them. Teams were coming from all over the place to play matches there . One the interesting things is to see how many teams were local and how many were not and some of the bodies which were sending teams along. Just a few picked at random were -- ‘Rocket Factory; ‘Wesley Friendly’ ....Maybloom’....’Plumstead Conservatives’. As I have said before in previous articles this whole world of works sports clubs in the early 20th century is a culture which we have only recently lost .
So the station on Church Manorway? This was very short lived and only existed during the Great War. It was built where the Manorway crossed the railway and a level crossing was installed. There is still today a footbridge at that site which is relatively new and it’s completely enclosed so that there is no way you can get out onto the line . They should have been looking at something like this 130 years ago because in newspaper reports of the late 19th century there are many suicides. It was a quite an isolated area although new building in the area was beginning to go ahead.
The level crossing was looked after by a crossing keeper and a house was provided on the south side of the crossing for him and his family. His job was to open the gate if a vehicle wanted to go through and there was a wicket gate always open for pedestrians but vehicles needed the keeper to open the gate. One evening In 1888.Mrs Charlotte Talbot the Crossing Keeper’s wife was looking out of her bedroom window when she saw a man walking on the line. She told her daughter Lottie to run downstairs and tell her father that there was a trespasser on the line and to do something . Before he could react the man had laid down on the line and a train had run straight over him - clearly the driver had not seen him there. Bits of him were scattered all up and down the line in a vivid description given to the inquest. Finding bodies on the line was sadly not unusual.
As the Great War continued so the number of people working at the Arsenal increased and the already enormous factory began to spread further towards the areas around Church Manorway. There were various entrances provided for some of the new working areas set up for ammunition manufacturing in the Great War add at least one was near where the level crossing went over the railway.
There was clearly a need for public transport for workers to some of these outlying areas. This article was intended to look at the railway and the small station which was built by the level crossing. Although I know it was there I have found no reference at all in the contemporary press to its existence and I assume that the Ministry of Munitions was working with the railway company to provide it and not involving the local authority and so nothing was reported.
This lack of reporting makes it very difficult to find anything about it at all. I would congratulate Steve Peterson and the team behind the Royal Arsenal website and their Facebook page who have managed to get together a set of pictures and some information about the line . Please look at it and give them some support. https://www.royal-arsenal-history.com/
The station or ‘halt’; is said to have opened in 1917. A picture on the Royal Arsenal History Facebook page shows a rather half hearted hut on a tiny platform area although there is also a suggestion that there was a ticket office on either side of the line. Most interestingly they reproduce special forms and documents which will allow Arsenal workers in to get special cheap tickets to use this station
In 1917 The Ministry of Munitions were however putting pressure on what was then by then Woolwich Council to provide trams and buses to the site and had made arrangements with the London General Omnibus Company to extend a number of 'bus or omnibus services Nos. 75 and 91 now terminating at Woolwich’ to the level crossing at Church Manorway, Plumstead.They said that the omnibus company had undertaken to provide, on private property, an omnibus stand and turning point at the level crossing. The Council said they had written to the Ministry of Munitions to point out that the roads on which these new services would be expected to run did not have suitable surfaces for such large public vehicles. They sent the Ministry the Borough Engineer’s estimate for the costs of upgrading these roads and resurfacing them. Borough Council had received an order from the Road Board to reconstruct Church Manorway as a granite macadam road.
Meanwhile it
transpired that the railway company had built a footbridge over the crossing
and the wicket gate level crossing was closed to pedestrian traffic. However
questions were being asked by councillors as to the inadequacy of the
footbridge. They said that ‘at certain times of the day large numbers of
Arsenal employees use this footbridge, which is only 4ft. wide, whereas the approach
thereto on the north side of track is 2t wide, and on the south side 2ft; the
bridge therefore forms a “ bottle-neck”,
which is considered dangerous. ‘ I have never seen a picture of this
footbridge built by the railway company and I would very much like to see what
it was like. The only hint there is on maps
is of something going straight over, not a zigzag formation as the bridge
which is there now is. Was there only just ever the one Bridge built in 1917?
Or was it later replaced before the current arrangements were put in? From evidence
and people putting memories on Facebook some of them say it was a concrete bridge but others are saying that it was wood. Do
any pictures of it exist? What was it like?
To get back to the
rather cross local Council. In 1917 it was said that the Town Clerk had spoken
to the Superintendent of the Welfare Supervision Department of the Royal
Arsenal and suggested that a much wider
bridge should be provided, notwithstanding a substantially increased cost. They
also felt that the level crossing gate should be open to Arsenal employees until
a better bridge could be built. This seems to have been agreed subject to
proper police control.
There seems to be nothing said in the Council published minutes about
the actual Station or halt.
After the war was over the railway Company announced their intention of closing
Church Manorway Halt Station as from 1st January 1920. :Local Member of Parliament,Will Crooks asked the Minister if he was aware that very many East Plumstead residents used
the station to reach their work at Erith and in the Royal Arsenal,’ as is
proved by the fact that two, and very often three, ticket collectors are
required to collect downline tickets in the morning;.... and whether he will
approach the company on this matter in order to secure a reconsideration of the
matter?’
But he was told by
the minister. so ‘The halt was provided as a war measure only, in view of the
large numbers employed at the Royal Arsenal. The halt is within easy reach of
Plumstead station, and he regrets that he cannot recommend its continuance, as
it would involve serious financial loss.
In 1921 after the Station had closed the South East and Chatham Railway locked the large gates, and removed
the wicket gates which had existed ‘ from time immemorial at that spot’. A
census was taken by the Borough Council, and it revealed the large numbers of
pedestrians, cyclists, and other vehicles using it during that period.
Representations were made to the company for a restoration of pre-war
conditions, but the railway company said it purely an ‘occupational road’, and
not a highway. The Borough Council, expressed concern for allotments holder who
experiencd great diffieulty in getting manure and other produce across the line
– and of course not to mention all the sportsmen!
The future story of this crossing is
clearly long and complex. This saga of the station happened over 100 years ago
and if you go to the site now there is still no access across the railway for
vehicles and there is just a very strange looking footbridge. I suspect that
over these 100 years there have been attempts by the local authority and local
people to get vehicle access across the the line restored with a proper road
bridge. It hasn't happened!
