top of page

A History Of The Leas Lift

The Site and its significance

 

 

The practice of immersion in the sea and breathing the ozone-rich air had spread and had been made easier for those in London by the extension of the South Eastern Railway to Folkestone in 1843.

With little room left round the harbour, the building of houses and hotels to accommodate the increasing numbers of visitors continued to the west at the top of the cliffs. But getting down to the harbour and seafront area for residents or holiday-makers was a problem, involving either steps, a steep road or a circuitous route via the cobbled Old High Street. Climbing back up was not for the old, ill or faint-hearted. So, when the idea of a pier was mooted in the early 1880s, the time also seemed right to search for a less arduous way of navigating the cliffs. Water balance lifts, which already operated in Scarborough (constructed 1874) and Saltburn-by-Sea (1884), appeared to provide a solution to the problem.

The Folkestone Promenade Pier Company was incorporated on 23rd February 1875 with the intention of providing Folkestone with a pleasure pier. But the scheme foundered initially due to opposition from the local council but in 1884 the Folkestone Promenade Pier Company was re-incorporated as the Folkestone Pier & Lift Company. The Folkestone Pier & Lift Act was passed on 7th August 1884 to allow for the construction of an 800ft long pier and a water-balance cliff tramway.

However, the option to build the cliff lift was taken up by the Folkestone Lift Company; who opened it on 16th September 1885 with immediate success. The Folkestone Pier & Lift Company did, however, go on to build the pier, which was opened by Lady Folkestone on 21st July 1888.

The Folkestone Lift Company leased the required land from Lord Radnor and local builder John Newman constructed the stations. The lift equipment was provided by Waygood and Company Limited. It opened on 21st September 1885 and the system comprised two parallel 5ft 10inch (1.5m) gauge tracks extending to a length of 164ft (49.5m) at an incline of 40¼°. The lift employed the water balance principle where water was supplied to the upper car to facilitate its descent, this being emptied onto the beach when the downward journey had been completed.

Two standard passenger cars, each capable of carrying 15 passengers, were provided. Conforming to a design that became synonymous with this type of railway, the cars had a covered body with a triangular sub-frame that housed a water tank. The main difference with Folkestone's cars was the door arrangement - these cars were fitted with a single sliding side entry door as opposed to opening doors at each end. This resulted in one of the two longitudinal bench seats having to be 'broken' mid-length to accommodate the door. Few facilities were ever provided at the upper terminus, but sizeable entrance buildings were constructed at beach level.

The earliest known picture of the original lift is the postcard below which is believed to show the commissioning tests before the lift opened for service.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The lift was an immediate success since it offered holiday-makers from a more “genteel” era a comfortable ride from the new hotels on the Leas to the bathing facilities on the beach, the switchback railway and the pier when it opened some time later.

Two problems soon became apparent:

The lift had insufficient capacity to carry the 700,000 passengers (approx) that were trying to use it each year

Dumping about 600 gallons of water each time the lift came down was proving to be expensive and causing concern to the local water company.

The solution was to build a second lift alongside the first and to find a way of recycling the water.

The “new” lift, completed in 1890, had to fit behind the existing station and, as a result, had a much steeper track (42°) that had to be fitted with unique “stepped” carriages in which the seats were individually fitted to angled steps inside the carriage. Where the 1885 lift had side doors, the “new” lift had to be fitted with end doors because of the restricted space in which it had to be built

Recycling the water used to move the lifts meant the installation of storage tanks at the top and bottom stations, the former being under the footway of the Leas and the latter being under the roadway outside the lower station. It also required the addition of a new wing on the eastern end of the station to accommodate two reciprocating pumps and the gas engines to drive them.

The photograph below shows the new arrangement as it was nearing completion in 1890.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A second set of tanks were added to the water cycle in 1899 to increase the amount of water that could be stored, presumably to cater for the increased needs of the service.

The same company was also responsible for the construction of a lift up Sandgate hill to the West of Folkestone, and finally, in 1903, one was installed near The Grand and the Metropole Hotel. However none of these were as successful as the first, lack of business forcing the Sandgate Hill lift to close in 1923.

The Second World War saw these three lifts shut for the duration of the war and the Leas Lift became a home guard post. A section of the pier opposite was removed to prevent the Germans using it if they invaded. The original gas engines that drove the recycling pumps were also removed around this time – presumable to deny any invaders the use of a working lift to get them up the cliff.

The Metropole lift was so neglected that it never reopened after the war but the Leas Lift was given new electric motors to drive the pump from the war damage reparation fund.

The heydays of Folkestone as a seaside resort were gone and, with the advent of holidays abroad, the crowds never returned. The 1890 lift carried its last passengers in October 1966, the Folkestone Lift Company going into voluntary liquidation in 1967.

The 1890 lift was damaged in a “heavy landing” that year and it was the cost of the improvements that its insurers demanded as a result that forced the Folkestone Lift Company out of business.

The carriages from the 1890 lift were left on site, in a state of dereliction, until 1985 when one of them was sent to the Dover Transport Museum where it languished in a state of disrepair until last year. The other carriage was in such a poor state of repair in 1985 that it was turned into a bonfire on the beach across the road from the lower station.

The tracks were left to rot in situ.

The original 1885 lift survived and was initially run by Folkestone Borough Council until it was absorbed into the newly created Shepway District Council, which kept it going until June 2009 when it closed for financial reasons. A community interest group got together and reopened the lift in August 2010.

 

The heritage importance of the site

The importance of the site has to be considered in a number of ways:

As a unique installation

As a transport link

As a visitor attraction

As an educational resource

As an important part of the history and heritage of the town itself

If the lift is to have a future, it has to carefully balance the complimentary functions that it performs i.e. a means of transport and a living museum. As a means of transport, its attraction is that it is the oldest working example of a bygone technology; as a museum, it would be considerably less attractive if it wasn’t working.

 

A unique installation

The lift is one of only three working Victorian water balance lifts in the country and is the second oldest of these. Most of the other water balance lifts have been converted to electricity at some time.

There is a “new” water balance lift at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales (below) which was built to a design based on the Leas Lift. Its lack of age puts it into a totally different category to the lift at Folkestone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The oldest water balance lift in the country is the one at Saltburn (below). Although the Leas Lift design was based on this one, as the picture below shows, it has doors at the end of the carriages and not the side as with the Folkestone lift. The original cars were replaced by aluminum ones in 1955 and an electric water pump was installed in 1924.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The third lift is at Lynton and Lynemouth (below) and it differs from the Leas Lift in two significant ways. Firstly, the water is not recycled. An act of parliament allows the lift to draw 60,000 gallons of water a day from a river above the lift and simply dump it when the lift reaches the bottom. Secondly, the driver travels on the carriage and all the controls are operated from there. The Leas Lift is controlled by the driver from a wheelhouse at the top station.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Leas lift is a unique installation that:

Was the first water balance lift on the South coast

Is one of only three Victorian water balance lifts still in use in the country

Was the only cliff lift with two separate lifts running alongside each other

Was the first building in the town, if not the country, with cavity walls

Was the only water balance lift with the original (1890) reciprocating pumps still in daily use

Had, and still has, the only known examples of early, cast steel herringbone gears still in daily use

Had, and still has, the original balance wheel and brake assembly

There is literally nothing else like it in the world.

 

A transport link

Most of the “seaside” activities in the town were concentrated on the beach to the West of the harbour beneath the new hotels at the “posh” end of town. The pictures below show the pier, the beach, the switchback and the bathing establishment (just above the entrance to the pier in the picture below)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only practical way of reaching these was by the steps and path behind the bathing establishment or by walking down “The Slope” (Road of Remembrance) to the harbour and then back along the beach.

The lift was ideally placed (just across the road from the entrance to the pier) to short-circuit this long walk and to make it possible to use the facilities on the beach for those that couldn’t or wouldn’t make the climb back up.

The lift remained a vital link between the town centre and the seafront as long as there were attractions down there. The demise of the Rotunda fun fair and the Sunday Market probably contributed to the district council’s decision to close the lift in 2009.

The main source of passengers since the lift reopened in 2010 are:

Parents with pushchairs and young children heading towards the adventure playground in the Coastal Park

Those with mobility problems who cannot get up or down the cliff under their own steam

Guests from the Burstin Hotel who are more willing to pay for the trip than they are to climb up the Road of Remembrance or the Old high Street

Those making the most of the abundant parking on the seafront

The future of the lift as a transportation link was emphasised at recent presentations by Sir Terry Farrell on the development plan for the seafront where he outlined the need for links between the town centre and the seafront. Without the critical links between the two and the free flow of people that they bring, the seafront may become little more than an isolated ghetto. In the diagram below, he envisaged an Easterly link down the path of the existing railway bridge and a Westerly link via the lift. The importance of this link is part of the consideration for the future of the lift detailed later on.

 

The needs may have changed but there is still a growing demand for the service provided by the lift.

 

A visitor attraction

The age, history and uniqueness of the lift has led to an increase in the number of people wanting to see it and travel on it purely because it is what it is.

The lift is hardly the kind of establishment where you take the family for a day out since you can see everything it has to offer in less than an hour. However, it is increasingly becoming part of a day out in Folkestone. In particular, families or school parties heading towards the adventure playground in the coastal park will include a ride on the lift as part of the outing. The evidence for this is seen in the number of families riding up and down without getting off the lift and from the conversations that can be overhead in the lift.

Increasing numbers of primary schools are negotiating party rates for groups of children on a school trip – once again to the adventure playground in the coastal park.

A ride on the lift is a fairly sedate experience but, for some, it is akin to a ride on the worst that Thorpe Park can throw at you and they find the experience a little nerve-wracking. Some treat their ride on the lift as a fairground experience. Where passengers are nervous, it does little for their confidence to see the state of the tracks alongside the ones they are riding on.

The lift participates in the Heritage Open Days organised by English Heritage and the numbers of people booking places on the tours of the workings of the lift are also an indication of that the lift is a visitor attraction in its own right

The operators are gradually improving the facilities on the site so that they introduce guided tours as a way of improving the income of the site.

The derelict tracks have now deteriorated to such a level that they are detracting from the attractiveness of the rest of the site.

 

An educational facility

The installation utilises a very basic scientific principle in order to transport its passengers and the utilisation of that principle made the lift a “green machine” before the concept was even invented. The installation has an enormous educational potential to:

*Primary school children learning about gravity, water conservation, the transfer of energy and the conversion of rotary to linear movement.

*Engineering students about energy conservation, system design and passenger management.

*Those having an interest in Victorian machinery. The lift has two belt-driven, reciprocating piston water pumps

*Building archaeologists as one of the earliest buildings in the country having a cavity wall construction

 

A part of the history and heritage of the town

It is difficult to quantify the part that the lift plays in the heritage of the town since it has just always been there as far as most people are concerned and they couldn’t imagine the town without it. The outcry that resulted from its closure and the number of campaigns that were mounted to get it open again, though, indicate the place that the lift has in the heart of the town.

The size, shape and function of the town has changed significantly as the result of historical events dating back to the stone-age, the coming of the Romans and the Viking invasions etc. The coming of the railway in 1843 resulted in a massive explosion in the size of the town towards the West as it became a seaside resort and the provision of the lift was a small but critical part in the process of allowing those holiday-makers to reach the facilities on the seafront that were the reason for them coming to the town in the first place. In modern terms, there would be little point in building the channel tunnel if you didn’t build the link road or the motorway that allowed people to use it.

The Leas Cliff water balanced lift in Folkestone has fascinated generation after generation with its Heath Robinson design of employing water to make the carriages move, but a delve into its past reveals yet more surprises.....

Click on the Leas Lift logo below to see our slide show

Click the Leas Lift to return to the top

Click the Leas Lift to return to the top

Click the Leas Lift to return to the top

Click the Leas Lift to return to the top

Click the Leas Lift to return to the top

bottom of page