Gravesend West Street Pier is the only remnant surviving of Gravesend West Railway Station. This station served as the terminus of the Gravesend West Line, with the platform and station situated on the raised structure that continued out onto the pier in the River Thames. The first station on the line after Gravesend West was Rosherville Halt; built unsuccessfully to encourage visitors to the declining Rosherville Gardens. The Gravesend West station was opened in 1886. It closed in 1953 to public passengers, and to freight transport finally in 1968. The platform was not actually demolished until 1991. Final sections of viaduct and bridge over West Street were removed in 2006. Today, the only section remaining stands as an abrupt block emerging out of waste ground. Whilst we managed to climb into the site and peer out across the derelict pier, there’s no chance in hell we would have ventured onto it! The pier surface survives as only a single layer of rotten timbers with nothing but the Thames below.
