Railways

Come the railway age, and a railway connection from Farnborough to London would have been expected to follow, but this did not happen.  There were some fourteen proposals, but none succeeded. Instead two main lines were eventually routed through Bromley and Orpington, at the nearest about one mile away.  Had the railway come to Farnborough then the development of the village would surely have been very different.

This website describes the many proposals to bring the railway through or to Farnborough., one page for each..  The maps and other details are taken from original documents archived mainly in the Kent County Archive in Maidstone. For each period, for context, there are also more general descriptions of the progress of what became today's main lines, and also some information about what was happening in Farnborough.

Railways came comparatively late to the surrounding area, despite its proximity to London.  As a consequence partly of geography, partly of the lack of population and industry, and partly due to inter-company feuding, Bromley, some four miles from Farnborough did not get a railway station until 1862. Orpington, little over one mile away, did not get its line until 1865, nearly twenty-five years after the opening of the terminus at London Bridge.
  There has never been a railway through Farnborough, but proposals to bring the railway to the village, began in 1845 and spanned 80 years,  They included light railways, a tramway, and even an atmospheric railway.  Some were approved but failed to come to fruition, either because the necessary finance could not be found, or the promoters decided to invest elsewhere. Many were to come through the centre of the village, using one of two routes as shown in these maps.


The first would have taken the line directly through the village centre, passing to the south of Farnborough Hall. The station would have been where the parade of shops is now.  Tubbenden Lane would have required a slight diversion where it meets the High Street.   In earlier proposals this would have been a through station, with the line continuing past St. Giles church toward Green Street Green and beyond.  In later ones  it would have been a branch line terminus. Precise alignments varied.

The second route involved taking a line across Tubbenden Lane to the north of Farnborough Hall, some 100 metres away from the High Street, as shown in the second sample diagram above. This alignment was later used for Farnborough bypass.  Again the line would have continued to Green Street Green.

The various proposals are described in detail on pages accessed using the menus. Had just one of these  succeeded, particularly one from the earlier decades, then Farnborough would surely have developed very differently.

It is undoubtedly true that the terrain to the south is challenging.  But a further factor was the lack of sufficient population and industry to justify the effort and expenditure. Despite substantial population growth in the country as a whole, that of Bromley actually fell for a while during the early part of the Railway Age and that of Farnborough did not grow as much as would otherwise have been expected.

The first local main line, towards Maidstone, built by the London Chatham and Dover Railway, passed through Bromley and then took the easiest route southward through the Darenth Valley.  The second line, built by the South Eastern Railway, could only be completed by undertaking major tunneling work at Polhill and Sevenoaks. Rather than follow the route from their own proposal of 1845 they now made their line as straight as possible, bypassing both Bromley and Farnborough.

The various proposals to bring a railway to or through Farnborough are the subject of this website  They are organised by date into groups.  For each of these there are one or more further pages to put the Farnborough proposals into the wider context of how railways were developing throughout the South-East London and Kent area.