Cross Channel

This page is mostly about railway connected shipping and fast ferry services across the English Channel and southern North Sea to continental Europe.  Photographs from each of the ports are grouped separately in clockwise order starting in the Thames and finishing in Dorset.  Although not a traditional railway port, a small selection of photos taken at Portsmouth is also included as part of the SHIPS gallery.

Photographs of trainferry operations at Harwich, Dover and Dunkerque appear on a separate page, as do those relating to passenger and freight services via the Channel Tunnel.

In addition, links are provided to notes about the origin, development and decline of rail-connected services and facilities at Dover and Folkestone.

GRAVESEND WEST STREET

Regular Cross Channel services from Gravesend only began in June 1922 when the Dutch owned Batavia Line transferred the UK terminal of their London – Rotterdam passenger service from Tilbury.  This service had for a long time been in competition with the Great Eastern Railway/LNER Harwich – Rotterdam/Hoek van Holland and Zeeland Steamship Queenborough – Vlissingen ferry services.  After World War 2 Batavia Line services reverted to sailing from Tilbury.  As the photograph shows, boat trains to Gravesend were rather minimal in comparison with those for Cross Channel sailings on other routes.

Parliamentary powers for a branch line to Gravesend from the London Chatham & Dover Railway near Longfield were obtained by a nominally independent company in 1882.  By the time the branch from Fawkham Junction opened to passengers in May 1886 the company and the line had been taken over by the LC&DR.  The branch included a short extension onto a new pier to connect with cross river and, hoped for, Cross Channel shipping services.  Passenger traffic to Gravesend West ceased in August 1953, with freight continuing until March 1968.  Part of the route remains as a link between the conventional network and HS1.  Except for part of the pier, all evidence of this once “international gateway” at Gravesend have been obliterated.

These images are not mine, apart from one map, they were discovered by a friend when clearing his late father’s house in Gravesend.  More details and photos can be found on the Gravesend West page of the Kent Rail website.

DOVER

A port settlement at Dover has existed since before the Romans arrived in Briton.  With its proximity to mainland Europe its importance as a landing place grew significantly after the Norman conquest.  Some additional shelter for shipping was constructed during the reign of Elizabeth I.  The later construction of Wellington Dock, designed by James Walker in the early 1830s, occupies the approximate footprint of this 16C Great Pent.

However, it was only in the early 19C, after previous concerns about invasion during the Napoleonic Wars, that the Admiralty eventually decided to build a major harbour of refuge for the British Navy at Dover.  Construction of the Admiralty Pier began in 1847 and this at last effectively stopped the silting of the old harbour mouth, as it cut off the easterly drift of shingle from the direction of Folkestone.  50 years later in 1897 work started on the Eastern Arm and Southern Breakwater, plus from 1898 an Admiralty Pier Extension, thus finally completing in 1909 the fully enclosed harbour as originally envisaged around 100 years earlier.

On 27th January 1844 the first rail reached Dover from London, leading to a new era in cross-channel travel.  For a summary of the beginnings, development and demise of rail-connected ferry services to France and Belgium, please click HERE.  Photographs and the story of the Train Ferry from Dover appears on another page.

FOLKESTONE

In 1843 the South Eastern Railway bought the bankrupt Folkestone Harbour Company (estd. 1807) and in August the same year the New Commercial Steam Packet Compan began a steamer service to Boulogne from the harbour’s South Quay.  Thus began 150 years of growth and decline of cross-channel ferry services from Folkestone.  Owning and having exclusive use of Folkestone meant that the SER always favoured the port for cross-channel services in preference to Dover where facilities were shared with the hated London Chatham & Dover Railway competitor.

The photos were taken near the end of Folkestone’s career as a cross-channel port. They deliberately focus on some of the already redundant facilities created during the early and mid 20th century for an increasing number of travellers.  Three years later the last remaining regular shipping link to the Continent had vanished.

A summary chronology of the complex story can be found by clicking HERE.

NEWHAVEN

This is a glimpse of the modern ferry operation from Newhaven, currently branded as DFDS but operated by Transmanche Ferries, together with some of the older listed buildings on the Railway Quay.  The development of cross-channel services from the port is yet another complex story, but very comprehensively told in Ferry Services of the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway by S. Jordan (The Oakwood Press – 1998).

WEYMOUTH

A weekly packet service from Weymouth to the Channel Islands (C.I.) first operated in 1794.  But it was following arrival of the broad gauge Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway (owned by the GWR) in January 1857 that cross-channel services from the port became firmly established.  In 1858 the GWR contracted with the newly formed Weymouth and Channel Islands Steam Packet Company to operated regular services from Weymouth to the C.I.  Using small second-hand paddle steamers the service proved unreliable and required a heavy subsidy.

Having already gained statutary powers in 1871 to operate ferries from Weymouth to France* and the C.I., the GWR eventually took over the C.I. ferry operation in August 1889.  Concurrent with this the GWR began operating passenger services along the Harbour Tramway (opened in 1865 for freight only) to connect with its ships.  At this time the GWR was in competition with the London & South Western Railway operating a C.I. ferry service from Southampton.  In 1899 the GWR and LSWR reached a Co-operation Agreement to coordinate their shipping services to the C.I.
(* GWR passenger ferries to France operated 1878-1885.)

Regular freight traffic on the Harbour Tramway ceased in August 1972; rail tanks of fuel oil for ships continued to run until September 1983.  After the Bournemouth-Weymouth electrification, regular passenger services on the Tramway ceased in September 1987.  Privatisation of British Rail’s Sealink business in 1984 resulted in many changes over the years to the Weymouth-C.I. ferry route until in 2015 Condor Ferries Ltd. finally withdrew their catamaran operation.  After 220 years Weymouth was no longer a cross-channel port.

SHIPS

Here are some pictures of cross-channel ferries other than at rail-connected ports.  Amongst the ships featured is the notorious “Herald of Free Enterprise“.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.