Aylesford railway station

Aylesford railway station is on the Medway Valley Line in Kent, England, serving the village of Aylesford. It is 38 miles 74 chains (62.6 km) down the line from London Charing Cross via Strood and is situated between New Hythe and Maidstone Barracks. The station opened on 18 June 1856.

Aylesford
Location
PlaceAylesford
Local authorityTonbridge and Malling
Coordinates51°18′05″N 00°27′58″E
Grid referenceTQ720586
Operations
Station codeAYL
Managed bySoutheastern
Number of platforms2
DfT categoryF2
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections
from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2014/15 0.116 million
2015/16 0.115 million
2016/17 0.123 million
2017/18 0.145 million
2018/19 0.162 million
History
Key datesOpened 18 June 1856 (18 June 1856)
National Rail – UK railway stations
  • Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Aylesford from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.

The station and all trains that call are operated by Southeastern.

History

Aylesford was opened by the South Eastern Railway, which merged with local rival London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR) on 1 January 1899 to form the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SECR). The station became part of the Southern Railway during the Grouping of 1923, and passed on to the Southern Region of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948.

When sectorisation was introduced in the 1980s, the station was served by Network SouthEast until the privatisation of British Railways.

The ticket office, in a building on the northbound platform, closed in September 1989 and an Indian restaurant—now incorporating a fried chicken takeaway—was subsequently established in the building, which had been extensively renovated in a prizewinning scheme in 1988. In 2007, a PERTIS (Permit to Travel) ticket machine was installed just inside the entrance to the station, on the northbound platform.[1] In early 2016 the Permit to Travel machine was removed with plans to replace it with a ticket machine.

Services

The typical off-peak service from the station is two trains per hour to Maidstone West, with alternate trains extended to Paddock Wood and Tonbridge, and two trains an hour to Strood, for connections to London.

Preceding station National Rail Following station
New Hythe   Southeastern
Medway Valley Line		   Maidstone Barracks

Station Building
Aylesford Station building

The section of the line surrounding Aylesford Station passes through what was part of the Preston Hall Estate, the then home of Edward Betts, the railway contractor who built this part of the Medway Valley Line. Consequently, the station building is much grander than other country stations along the line. The station buildings are gabled and highly decorated, built in Kentish ragstone with Caen stone dressings, in part reflecting a simplified version of the style of Preston Hall. Windows replicate those at Aylesford Priory.

Following restoration and refurbishment, the station building received an Ian Allan award in 2001, commemorated by a plaque in the waiting room/booking office, which is now in use as an Indian Takeaway Restaurant.

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References

Notes
  1. Harman, David (ed.) (December 2007). The Journal of the Transport Ticket Society. Kemsing: The Transport Ticket Society (527): 451. ISSN 0144-347X. Missing or empty |title= (help)CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)

Bibliography
  • Butt, R. V. J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC 60251199.
  • Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 978-0-906899-99-1. OCLC 228266687.
  • Jowett, Alan (March 1989). Jowett's Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland: From Pre-Grouping to the Present Day (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-086-0. OCLC 22311137.
  • Station on navigable O.S. map
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