| Tenterden St. Michael's | |
| Status: | Disused |
| Borough: | St. Michaels nr Tenterden, Ashford |
| Country: | England |
| Grid Name: | Grid reference |
| Platforms: | 1 |
| Original: | Kent and East Sussex Railway |
| Postgroup: | Kent and East Sussex Railway Southern Region of British Railways |
| Years: | 23 November 1912[1] |
| Events: | Opened |
| Years1: | 4 January 1954[2] |
| Events1: | Closed |
Tenterden St. Michael's was a railway station on the Kent and East Sussex Railway which served the Tenterden suburb of St Michaels in Kent, England. The station was situated on the southern side of a level crossing to the south of St. Michael's tunnel, one of the line's main civil engineering features. Closed in 1954, nothing remains of St. Michael's today: a footpath and cycleway runs through the site.
Tenterden St. Michael's was opened in 1912 to serve the local community of St Michaels on the outskirts of Tenterden.[3] It was situated immediately south of the ungated level crossing over Grange Road.[4]
St. Michael's was little more than a halt station consisting of no more than a single platform made of sleepers and, for some time, a small corrugated iron hut which served as a ticket office.[5] So modest were the facilities that the wooden picket gate leading from the road for the use of passengers has been described as "more obvious than the halt itself".[6] By August 1938, the ticket office had closed and passengers were obliged to purchase their tickets on the train; the station had also become run-down and the track weed-strewn. It had fallen into a dangerous and decrepit state by 1953, the condition of the platform sleepers having seriously deteriorated.[7] Regular passenger services on the line were withdrawn after the last train on Saturday 2 January 1954.[8] The line was engineered and operated by Colonel H F Stephens. The only tunnel on the line the 31 yards long "St Michaels Tunnel" was located just north of the halt.[9]
There is no trace of Tenterden St. Michael's today; its site is now a footpath and cycleway.[10] To the north beyond the site of the level crossing over Grange Road, Orchard Road has been built along the right-of-way[11] and St. Michael's tunnel remains beneath Shoreham Lane at grid reference .[12]