The proposed Gravesend Rail Road, as it would appear in Greenwich Park from the Observatory Hill

Lithographed by Charles Hullmandel (1789–1850) after a drawing by Alfred Bowyer Clayton (1795–1855), this hand-coloured print was published in 1835 to promote a proposal for the construction of a railway viaduct across Greenwich Park to the south of the Queen’s House. A smaller version of the print was published by Chapman & Co. in the same year. Both versions include an inscription naming George Smith (1783–1869) and Lieutenant-Colonel George Thomas Landmann (1780–1854) as the architect and engineer, respectively, behind the project.

The viaduct proposal faced strong opposition from Greenwich Hospital and others. It was part of a larger scheme to extend the route of the London and Greenwich Railway (L&GR). Parliament had passed the London and Greenwich Railway Act in 1833, authorising creation of a railway line from Tooley Street (now London Bridge) to London Street in Greenwich along a plan laid out by Landmann. Construction of this railway was completed in stages. The section from Spa Road in Bermondsey to Deptford opened in February 1836, followed ten months later by the section from London Bridge to Spa Road. The final leg of the railway, linking Deptford and Greenwich, came into public use on 29 December 1838. The line was London’s first suburban railway. It initially terminated at a temporary station in Greenwich, until a permanent brick station – designed by Smith – was built in 1840.

A bill for extending the line as far as Gravesend in Kent, including the routing of the railway through Greenwich Park, was presented to Parliament in 1836, but it was withdrawn before the second reading. An extension of the line beyond Greenwich was eventually opened in February 1878, following the creation of a cut-and-cover tunnel under the lawns on the north side of the Queen’s House. The tunnel connected the Greenwich line to the North Kent Line via Maze Hill station, which had been built in 1873. A new station building was constructed at Greenwich to accommodate the change in the level of the railway, which now descended towards the tunnel entrance under King Street (now King William Walk). The new building replaced Smith’s earlier station but reused some of its stonework.