WELL HALL STATION

 A couple of weeks ago I did an article on Kidbrooke Station to supplement some of the other pieces I’ve been putting here about Kidbrooke. But anyway, now, I thought it might be worth moving on down the line and looking at the other stations within Greenwich Borough which are on the Bexleyheath Line. One of them, Eltham, replaces two old stations which were closed and removed.  To my surprise no-one that I’ve mentioned these old stations to recently can remember them -  although they were there until 1985. Do people really have such poor memories? Anyway that means there are three stations for me to take on and write up – Eltham Well Hall, Eltham Park and Eltham.

Eltham Well Hall was the next station after Kidbrooke when the line opened in 1895. Clearly it was named for the adjacent Well Hall manor house, once home to the Tudor Roper family - but in the 1890s when the station opened it was  in use as a school. :Later there some famous residents and today only the ‘Tudor Barn’ remains in the ‘Pleasaunce’ which is a public park..When Well Hall station closed I don’t remember anybody saying that the Railway Children had lost their local station.

The Bexleyheath rail line was promoted in the late 19^th century to open up areas of north west Kent for suburban housing .Alongside reports of the new Well Hall Station was a widely advertised property close by which  had ten  bedrooms and a billiard room  with ‘capital hunting and shooting’ as attractions in the local area. If that is too expensive and you want somewhere more modest you were advised to consult Mr Snelling,  station master at the new station.   It’s unclear advice on local properties for sale is a railway company service or if it’s a bit of private enterprise by their staff. Nothing would ever surprise me!

It was pointed out that in the neighbourhood of this station there were hundreds of acres available , sufficient to allow the London County Council to build more than one ‘municipal village’.  Trouble was they might come from Deptford with radical ideas.  As the West Kent Argus said ...”There are also a few people of rather extreme views, employed in the building trades, or as shoemakers and tailors, who call themselves Socialist Communists. Their idea is to take one of the largest houses in the above mentioned neighbourhoods, and establish a communistic home, with a common kitchen, dining, reading, smoking rooms. etc. They contemplate having social meetings, and garden parties on Sundays, to which their comrades from London would come in brakes and other vehicles. And it is extremely probable that bands of music and banners would also be introduced.”

Well Hall Station was nine miles down the line from Charing Cross. Like at Kidbrook the new station buildings were designed to a standard pattern – an example only surviving at Pluckley today. They consisted of a single-storey timber building with a timber shelter on the "down" platform. There was a goods yard behind the "up" platform, with two sidings. A signal box stood beyond the end of the "down" platform.

One local institution which made  major use of the station was the military hospital - the Herbert Hospital up in Shooters Hill Road.  The buildings now stand, converted to housing. It was to be renamed ‘Royal Herbert’ following a grant of Royal Patronage during Queen Victoria’s visit in 1900 when she came to see soldiers injured in South Africa. She arrived and departed through Well Hall Station – and for weeks before and after the event the local press reported every fussy arrangement made for the visit.  The day itself was a local holiday with crowds gathering to see the very elderly Queen who is pictured in a wheel chair.

Three years later, in 1903, Victoria’s son, by then King Edward  VII, and his wife, Queen Alexandra visited with perhaps marginally less fuss but still using Well Hall Station. They also saw men wounded in South Africa and the Queen opened a new nursing department.

It was reported in 1900 that there were about 500 sick in the hospital and ‘150 came in yesterday from off the SS Winifredian’ – used as a troop ship it was brand new  and built as a livestock carrier. They had arrived at Well Hall Station, and were met there by ambulances. ‘Most of the men are either wounded or have enteric fever ....there is accommodation for 700’.

Other military uses include transfer of supplies. ‘The steamship Umtati left the Thames with 200 tons of war stores, including a  large number of bales of military clothing from Pimlico’. And ‘One hundred remounts for the Royal Artillery will be taken from Woolwich to Well Hall  Station, at 5.15 a.m. to-morrow morning, and  conveyed by special train to Gravesend Pier,  where they will cross by ferry to Tilbury Dock, and embark for conveyance to  South Africa’.

So transfers of men  and goods had been made easier and although the hospital was a distance away from the new station, there was a door to door road.  Until  1905, what we now know as Well Hall  Road was a narrow, winding, tree-lined lane but clearly it was better than available alternatives.  In 1905 the Council widened  and improved the road, and in 1910 a tramway  was constructed, powered by overhead wires . The age of  mechanisation had reached the Well Hall area,  but, said Country Life in 1981, because of the enlightened attitude of the  Council in the 1930s “some small remnant of the  hamlet's rural past has been preserved.”

In 1907 workmen’s tickets were introduced following a campaign, while new tram routes accessed the station.  Then, a second new station opened nearby "Shooters Hill & Eltham Park" which was intended as a replacement for Well Hall, which would be closed.: However "it was discovered they were under a statutory obligation to keep Well Hall Station open’ – part of an agreement with local property owners.  From 1916, the station was called “Well Hall and North Eltham” and then from. 1927 ‘Eltham (Well Hall)”.  Around the same time, the goods yard acquired a five-ton crane. In 1926 the railway was converted to third rail electrical supply. In 1931 the station had acquired a new main building and concrete lampposts with hexagonal lampshades.

The station survived the Second World War but lost its tram service in 1952. In 1955 the platforms were lengthened and a new entrance was opened with a staircase on the embankment. The goods facilities closed in 1968 and the signal box in 1970.  Also in 1970 ‘a check rail’ was laid along what was known as the ‘Well Hall Curve’ and which had permanent speed restriction of 20 mph. This had been installed following opposition to the building of the line by Sir Henry Barron and the necessity to meet his requirements made in their Parliamentary Bills which he had would otherwise have opposed.

 In June 1972 a diesel hauled excursion train, travelling between Margate and Kentish  Town came up the line. The driver failed to take any braking action to reduce his train's speed on the steeply falling gradient and as a result the locomotive entered the curve at 65 mph, distorting the track and sharpening the curve immediately ahead of its wheels. It overturned to the left and dragged the train after it into almost total derailment.  The driver had been drinking  a considerable quantity of alcohol both before and after booking on duty, including some shortly before leaving Margate, and some more in his cab during the journey.  He died along with six passengers. 126 people, including the second man on the locomotive, were taken to hospital. 40 were ‘kept in’, some  being very seriously injured

In 1981 the Greater London Council published plans for the “Rochester Way Relief Road” running in the ‘railway corridor’.  Country Life commented in 1981 “By imperilling the preserved serenity of Well Hall and its environs, the lorry has succeeded where other pressures for change have failed. It is a pity that the present Borough Council does not appear to possess the sensibilities of its predecessor 51 years ago.”  It required the demolition of Well Hall station which was on its path. A single station to replace the two then current would save vast sums and include a bus interchange.  Closure of Eltham Well Hall and Eltham Park stations was scheduled for 2nd March 1985, but bad weather held things up. The last train to call at Well Hall station was the 23:43 Charing Cross to Dartford on 16th March 1985.

There is now no trace of the station.  I have looked and failed to find any press coverage of its closure.  I am however grateful to the 1981 edition of Country Life which tells me of the difficulties the station had in relationships with the local land owner, Cator,  ‘following his certification  .....everything to be agreed by the commisdsdioner in lunacy".