Photographs from the Lens of Sutton Collection
There can be few places in the south of England with a population still to reach 110,000 that can boast four different rail routes to the capital, though they all eventually come together 4¼ miles out from Charing Cross at North Kent East Junction,.
The first of these, in fact not quite the first to get to Dartford itself, was the first in London and thus provided the first station within the London boundary, Spa Road, about one mile east of London Bridge. The London & Greenwich Railway had been authorised on 17th May 1833, eleven days after Robert Stephenson's London & Birmingham. It was, however, opened in pieces, the first piece on 8th February 1836 between Spa Road and Deptford, though a trial over a shorter course had taken place on 9th June 1835. The Lord Mayor opened the section westward from Spa Road into London Bridge on 14th December 1836 but it took another two years to complete the line on to Greenwich itself, that section coming into use on Christmas Eve 1838 though the station building there, in the Classical style, was not complete until 1840. Though it is agreed ‘right-hand’ running featured on the L&GR for a significant period the exact dates of when it began and ended are in doubt or, at least, argued over though it seems left-hand running had been introduced permanently by about 1880.
In all 3¾ miles long and raised above the Thames flood plain on 878 brick arches, the great majority being of semi-circular 30ft span, the cost of the line, originally estimated at £400,000, turned out to be not far short of £1 million. It would possibly have topped that had the engineer, Lt.Col. Landmann RE (ret.), used London bricks for the arches rather than cheaper Kentish bricks made on the Swale marshes at Murston near Sittingbourne and barged up the Thames.
The company had anticipated gaining a regular income by letting out the arches as residential properties or industrial units. Unfortunately it had omitted to advise Landmann of this which resulted in the trackbed lacking waterproofing when the tracks went down. Very few were thus let and soon there were complaints also about the noise and particularly the vibration caused by the trains passing overhead. Nevertheless, regular income was gained in the form of tolls paid by three companies for the use of the 1¾ miles of L&GR track between Corbetts Lane Junction and London Bridge. The London & Croydon had made this connection on opening on 5th June 1839, four years to the day since its authorisation. That company in turn accorded running powers to the London & Brighton from July 1841 and the South Eastern from May 1842. By the end of that year the L&GR had widened the viaduct to take these additional services, the tolls paid by all three of those companies for the use of L&GR track then being set at 4½d (1.875p) per passenger.
This figure was a source of irritation to all three companies, particularly the Croydon whose chairman contended that the toll costwith the branch on 1st May 1844. All Croydon trains and about half those of the South Eastern were immediately switched to it, the resultant loss of income forcing the Greenwich to offer more reasonable toll terms and a promise to provide an additional track from Corbetts Lane Junction into London Bridge. But nothing came of it. Instead, in 1845 the SER took a 999-year lease on the Greenwich at £36,000, rising annually to a maximum of £45,000. Unusually perhaps, the South Eastern never took the company over, presumably because of its indebted financial condition. The London & Greenwich Railway thus still existed independently at grouping and was among the last to come into the Southern's camp. Passenger trains ceased to use Bricklayers Arms from January 1852 but it became one of London's busiest freight depots.
