ORLESTONE 1419/0/10003 ST MARY'S CLOSE 09-MAY-05 Hamstreet Hamstreet and Orlestone Railway Station II Country railway station. Opened in 1851, designed by William Trees for the Ashford to Tonbridge line. Italianate style. Built of red brick (the upper part of the south end painted) with full-height stock brick pilasters and stringcourse, stuccoed dressings and slate roof with overhanging eaves and two tall brick chimneystacks, the southern painted. Two storeys with three windows to the upper floor and four to the lower. PLAN FORM: Asymmetrical design, roughly T-shaped with projecting north gable to both sides. Originally the ground floor consisted of a booking office with a counter, a clerk's room, ladies and gentlemen's toilets and a porters' room with a stationmaster's flat above. EXTERIOR: The west or entrance front has a first floor round-headed casement window below the projecting gable with two small casement windows to the ground floor. The remaining part has two casement windows divided by columns to the upper floor and larger mullioned and transomed casements to the ground floor and double doors. The platform side has a paired round-headed arch to the first floor of the gable and two window openings below, one blocked window and one casement window. The remaining part has casement windows to the first floor and mullioned and transomed casements to the ground floor. All the building, except the northern bay has a verandah with slate roof supported on large curved wooden brackets. The north elevation has two casement windows divided by columns to the upper floor and a blocked round-headed opening to the ground floor. INTERIOR: The original plan form was modified by partitioning part of the old booking office to make a smaller one with the remainder adapted to become a waiting room, putting the clerk's office upstairs and turning the porter's room into a store. HISTORY: The design of this station is a mirror image of Winchelsea Railway station (also on the Ashford to Hastings line) for which the original plans survive. An externally unaltered 1851 Italianate style country railway station retaining its verandah and (unusually for the south of England) a staggered foot crossing for passengers.