The original Tenterden station was on this site when the first section of Railway was opened in 1900. Had the original plans for the Railway materialised this would have been an important junction point. As it was it became the Kent and East Sussex Railways engineering centre with Workshop, Locomotive and Carriage Sheds where minor miracles were performed with primitive equipment to keep the railway running. To complete the picture a standard Stephens Station Building similar to that at Bodiam and a small goods yard for agricultural goods was provided.
Virtually the whole site was cleared in British Railways days and the only Remaining Relic of the old railway, is the concrete water tower between the platform and engine yard. The old rolling stock sheds site is under part of the large wood yard on the West of the line and the present locomotive facilities are on the site of the old goods siding on the other side of the line. The field beyond has been purchased for expansion when enough help and finance permit. Useful storage areas are scattered throughout the site with their traditional but essential clutter.
The present railway provided the modest but elegant and functional passenger shelter in the Stephens style and station office in 1980. Unusually for British practice trains pass on the loop beyond the platform by the signalbox, newly built in 198? to the traditional branch line style. These arrangements were forced on the railway by the narrowness of the site we inherited but contribute to the functional eccentricity inseparable from a Colonel Stephens railway.
