Harbour Station

The Pier District, as it was known, was once a densely populated part of the town. The one remaining part of the Harbour Station still stands alongside the main Dover to London railway line in Elizabeth Street, but trains have not called there in my lifetime.

This was once the Dover terminus of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR), affectionately known as the "Land 'em, Smash 'em and Over". The rival South Eastern Railway terminus was a short distance away at the Town Station.

Few of the old street names survive, Bulwark Street and Hawkesbury Street being the only other ones in the immediate vicinity, although totally devoid of any other buildings.

Behind the station (on the right of the picture) were Strond Street and Custom House Quay. On the left, roughly opposite the cars in the picture, was Strond Lane, leading to Water Lane and Oxenden Street. This picture was taken at the junction with Hawkesbury Street and Round Tower Lane.

At the top end of Elizabeth Street was the junction with Limekiln Street, leading to Bulwark Hill and Archcliffe Road.

The railway line split here to go left behind the camera to Hawkesbury Street Junction, the Town Station, and thence to Folkestone, and right to the Admiralty Pier, the Train Ferry Dock and the Marine Station.

The Train Ferry Dock was built in the early 1930s, after another failed attempt to build a tunnel under the Channel forced the Southern Railway to adopt a different method of getting trains to France. Three ferries, the Twickenham Ferry, the Hampton Ferry and the Shepperton Ferry were built to carry 12 sleeping cars or 40 loaded goods wagons on four sets of rails. They could also carry 25 cars. Passengers could now board the train at London Victoria, have dinner on the train, then retire to their wagon-lit to sleep the rest of the journey to Paris.

The Twickenham Ferry was taken out of service in 1972; they are all long gone now.