Railway north of Snowdown station

Introduction

The photograph on this page of Railway north of Snowdown station by Marathon as part of the Geograph project.

The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.

There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk

Railway north of Snowdown station

Image: © Marathon Taken: 12 Apr 2013

The line from Faversham to Canterbury East was opened on 9th July 1860 by the London, Chatham & Dover Railway. On 22nd July 1861 this was extended from Canterbury East to Dover. Snowdown and Nonington Halt was opened in 1914 and had sidings that served the adjacent Snowdown colliery. Snowdown was the deepest of the four main pits in the Kent Coalfield, (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Coalfield ), reaching a depth of 3,083 feet. Work commenced in 1908, and coal was first brought to the surface on November 19th 1912. The first shaft sunk hit water at 260 feet and 22 men were drowned. The new town of Aylesham was built just to the north of the colliery to provide homes for the many migrant workers from Wales and the north-east of England, and a separate station was opened there in 1928. In 1945 the workforce was 1,876, with 1,523 being employed sub-surface and 353 above. The colliery closed in 1986 and the shafts were capped in 1988. A few ruinous buildings remain today. http://www.eastkent.freeuk.com/mining/snowdown_colliery.htm The name of the adjacent station was subsequently shortened to just Snowdown. This is the view from the road immediately to the north of Snowdown station, looking in the direction of Aylesham and Canterbury East..

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0