To celebrate 200 years of Southeastern, Grove Park will be hosting a family fun event tomorrow (May 10) to mark Rail200 this year.
Grove Park is synonymous with its links to The Railway Children author Edith Nesbit, whose time living in Grove Park station is believed to have inspired this beloved children’s classic.
To celebrate her links to Grove Park there will be a free guided tour taking place at 11am, starting from the ticket office, where visitors will learn about how Nesbit’s time living in Baring Road next to the nature reserve may have inspired her writings.
But aside from the tour there will also be a dress up box, where guests will be able to dress themselves in 20th century costume and have photos taken at the station, with the backdrop of the original steel bridges that criss-cross the platforms.
Lee O’Dwyer, Station Manager at Grove Park, said: “We are delighted to host this event at Grove Park station, a place deeply intertwined with E. Nesbit’s classic tale, ‘The Railway Children.’
“It’s wonderful to see our station being used to celebrate the magic of early 20th-century rail travel and the rich history that inspired this story.
“We look forward to welcoming families to step back in time and experience the charm of ‘Railway Children’ land.”
The Local Grove Park community centre will be providing a walking guide for participants to take the Railway Children walk, with a history of the area, and highlighting where parts of the book were inspired along the way.
Ben Donaldson, Vice Chair of the Grove Park Community Group, said: “The Grove Park Community Group is delighted to support this event which celebrates a precious part of Grove Park’s cultural heritage.
“The anniversary is also a great opportunity to build momentum for one of our charity’s biggest projects: the establishment of the Railway Children Urban National Park which plans to increase public access to green space including more of the railway verge which Edith Nesbit’s children would have run up and down when she was living on Baring Road.”
