Dungeness railway station (South Eastern Railway)

The railway terminated almost at the foot of Dungeness lighthouse (1901) where very basic facilities were provided in the shape of a single platform on which was perched a small arched roof weather-boarded shed comprising a ticket office, waiting room and ladies and gents toilets.

[2] The promoters of the line had hoped that linking Dungeness, one of the largest expanses of shingle in the world, with London by rail would lead to its development as a port from which cross-channel steamers could operate to the small French fishing port of Le Tréport, 60 miles distant and 114 miles from Paris.

Proposals to construct a harbour at Dungeness had been around since the 1870s and received support from South Eastern Railway chairman Edward Watkin; the inexhaustible supply of shingle could, if dug out, have been used for track ballast and to form the basin of what could have been one of the most cheaply built dock systems in the world.

[3] The development of Dungeness failed to materialise and the South Eastern Railway, which had taken over the Lydd Railway in 1895, was left with two short branch lines in a remotely populated area, with the Dungeness branch carrying the lightest of traffic; shingle did provide some traffic, including flints for the Potteries which used them to provide glaze on china.

As at 2022 the station site and trackbed is still undeveloped with degraded remains of the clinker and timber platform after years of coastal erosion.