Count Dracula Comes to Tenterden by Alan Dixon

First published in issue 2 of The Tenterden Terrier Summer 1973
Reproduced with permission of present editor Mr P D Shaw

Shooting on location at Rye early in May, brought the production company Latglen Ltd., into East Sussex for sequences in a new film about our long-toothed friend, and having “discovered” the Kent & East Sussex at Northiam, they traced the line back to its source. Once at Tenterden, they really “fell” for the railway, and asked if they could use Tenterden Station, plus train for a further location sequence in the same film.

This posed enormous problems, because the production schedule demanded a date but a couple of weeks on, and the stock which was required was all in the yard at Rolvenden – on the wrong side of bridge 2330! Fortunately the track had just been reinstated across 2330, but as yet, it had not been aligned, the bridge works had not been passed fit for use and no permission existed for the necessary movements across it or the main road.

However, these were comparatively small problems for a railway that has thrived upon difficulties over the years, and by moving heaven and earth, Rick Edmundson and the Company Secretary Steve Bennett achieve the impossible, with the bridge finished and clearance for movement from Rolvenden to Tenterden.

The Locomotive Department matched this effort, by getting No.3 “Bodiam” into sparkling order once again and ready for service in time for the day’s filming, together with the “Woolwich” coach which Rodney Packham’s team had finished off in its new livery, in record time.

In fact, with such a tight schedule, Steve was not able to confirm to Latglen that all systems were “go” for the filming until midday on the previous day, but nevertheless everything went smoothly on Wednesday 23 May.

Having been lighted up by Alan Castle, No.3, crewed by Jack Hoad and Don Woodland, was ready for service by 1045am with a train consisting of the Woolwich coach plus two low sided wagons and the ex-SE&CR six-wheeled goods brake which were being taken to Tenterden for our own use. However, when the film people saw the train they asked for the make up to be left intact.

The film, produced and directed by Dan Curtis, is being made primarily for the American television company CBS and will probably be screened here in the cinema network at a later date. The stars are Jack Palance, Fiona Lewis, Simon Ward, Pamela Browne, Nigel Davenport and Penelope Horner, although only the last four named were featured in the location scenes at Tenterden.

These scenes, shot by Academy award winning cameraman Ossie Morris, required No.3 to steam around the corner and up the hill into the flower-bedecked station, which was renamed “Whitby” for the occasion. There, the principal characters dressed in costume of the late nineteenth century, were greeted by others, similarly attired, and the whole entourage were then driven from the station yard in a horse drawn chaise.

Interior sequences required some of the partitioning in the coach to be removed, and the station waiting room to be cleared, whilst the production company used the general office as their temporary headquarters.