Plotlands

The context of the scheme lay in the suburban development of a remote rural area near the crest of the North Downs on the Kent-Surrey border, comprising the tiny hamlet of Biggin Hill in the former together with the small but ancient village of Tatsfield in the latter.

This locality was an early example of a plotland development, of which many examples sprang up in countryside around major cities in the first half of the 20th century. The process involved speculative developers buying up failed country farms or estates, and dividing the land into portions or plots of about an acre which were then sold off to individuals to do with as they pleased. This was before the existence of laws governing planning permission. The results were usually settlements of poor quality residences lacking utilities and social services, accessed by unmade tracks.^[1]

The Aperfield Court Estate at Biggin Hill was bought by a London speculator called Frederick Dougal in 1889,.^[2] He divided up the land into plots which he sold off for £10 each with a £1 deposit (£1300 in 2020 values, £130 down). However, interest was limited by the remoteness of the locality. Such plotlands only became popular with the arrival of private road vehicles.^[3]

Orpington, Cudham and Tatsfield Light Railway

The answer here was the promotion of a speculative branch railway from Orpington on the South Eastern Railway, with the hope that this would encourage interest in suburban development. The Orpington, Cudham and Tatsfield Light Railway Company (OCTR) was therefore incorporated in 1898, with Colonel Holman Fred Stephens as the engineer.

The company obtained a Light Railway Order in 1902, authorising construction of a 7.5 mile (12 km) line which was to be completed in four years.^[4] Authorised capital was £70 000,^[5] and the South Eastern Railway was to work the line once completed. Unfortunately, investment was not forthcoming and construction did not begin.^[6]

Route of the OCTLR

The 1902 proposal involved a line running due south of Orpington to a station at Green Street Green, just south of the road called Farnborough Hill and west of High Street. It then turned south-west to run up the valley occupied by Cuckoo Wood to Cudham station at Hang Grove Hill. From there hugged the east side of Berry's Green before turning due west to Biggin Hill station on the present A233 road, about the south end of Aperfield Road. It then ran south-east and south to cross Tansfield Lane, then paralleled that road westwards to its terminus of Tatsfield station where Tatsfield Primary School used to be, by the crossroads at the top of Church Hill.^[7]

SHLR proposal

The OCTLR was defunct after 1906. However, the scheme was revived in a more ambitious form when the Southern Heights Light Railway was proposed in the mid 1920s. Colonel H. F. Stephens was the engineer again, forming a personal link between the two schemes, and he was also to be a major promoter in his own right despite calling himself the "Agent to the Promoters".^[8][9]

The SHLR scheme first drew wider public attention in March 1925, when an inquiry into the proposed line was held at Orpington, Kent. It was to have been a single track railway constructed across the North Downs from Orpington to Sanderstead.^[8] In a departure from Stephens' usual practice, there were to have been no level crossings at all on the line, which would have required 23 bridges to have been built. Construction of the line would have required the excavation of 631,000 cubic yards (482,000 m³) of material.^[10]

The line was to have been electrified by the third rail system, and was to have been operated by the Southern Railway as part of its suburban electric railway network.^[11] Passenger trains would have been operated by electric multiple units, with steam locomotives handling goods trains.

The Southern Railway involvement was vital. That company's chairman, Sir Herbert Ashcombe Walker, addressed its board on the scheme's behalf in February 1926, just before the application for a Light Railway Order. The total cost he estimated to be £800 000, so it was proposed that the capital applied for was to be £900 000. £600 000 of this was to be in ordinary shares and £300 000 to be in guaranteed interest debentures. Sir Herbert obtained the board's approval for the SR to guarantee the interest on the latter, and to work the line in return for 75% of the gross receipts. Also, approval was given for the SR to invest in the scheme, and to have the option to purchase at cost price within five years of completion. In return, two of the SHLR directors were to be nominated by the SR board.^[12]

A subsequent meeting of the board, in the same month, fixed the SR investment at £150 000, which was intended to pay for the cost of electrification.

SHLR approval

The Light Railway Order (LRO) was granted provisionally on 29 December 1928. Instead of the expected share capital of £600 000, only £500 000 was authorised. Simultaneously, the SHLR and SR signed a working agreement. Notably, this specified that the line was to be single, but was to be engineered to allow for future double track. Also, timetabling and fares were to be the responsibility of the SR. The latter began to include the scheme in its publicity, notably on its system maps.^[13]

A revised estimate of the cost of purchasing land and erecting necessary buildings (that is, excluding that of building the actual railway line) was given as £575 000. Only three of the proposed stops were to be built as full stations, and the company requested that level crossing be allowed "where necessary" (this was in contradiction to the scheme's original publicity).

The provisional nature of the LRO involved certain conditions: The authorised capital was to be raised, and the land purchased, within two years, which meant that the authorisation would lapse at the end of 1930. In that year, Colonel Stephens made a fund-raising trip to the United States, with no success. ^[14]

Failure

The LRO lapsed in December 1930, as the capital could not be raised.

In January 1931, as a result, a new LRO was applied for and authorisation was sought to deviate from the authorised route in an effort to reduce construction costs by £17,245. The line was to have taken a different route in the parishes of Cudham, Tatsfield and Titsey, on the Kent/Surrey border.^[15]

The scheme faded away in the 1930s,^[16] after Colonel Stephens died in October 1931 and the scheme lost its main promoter. The death blow had already been given in July of that year, when the SR board decided not to support the application for a new LRO and the scheme was deleted from SR publicity.^[17]

Legacy

The only construction that started was south of Orpington station on the east side of the line; some excess spoil was delivered to the site during the 1930s ready for construction. The SR had to electrify a connection to the proposed western junction at Sanderstead, and chose the previously failed Woodside and South Croydon Joint Railway. This would have allowed a loop service from the former South Eastern Railway London termini, running Lewisham - Woodside - Sanderstead - Orpington - Lewisham and vice versa.^[16][18] Despite the SR's abandonment of support in 1931, electrification works already in hand were allowed to go ahead, and electric trains from London termini to Sanderstead via Woodside began in 1935. They were to continue until 1983, latterly as a very poorly patronised peak-hours shuttle service.