Junction Road station was first opened in 1900 as a private platform for the benefit of the tenant of the adjoining fields who enjoyed shooting rights over the land. The station was situated on the eastern side of a level crossing on the turnpike road from Hawkhurst to Hastings called Junction Road (now part of the B2244 road). The crossing was originally gated, but cattle grids later replaced the gates to prevent livestock from straying onto the line. After a brief closure, Colonel Stephens, the proprietor of the Kent and East Sussex Railway (KESR) (then known as the Rother Valley Railway) formally applied in 1903 for permission to open the station to the public. Although it is unclear whether authorisation was actually granted, the station began to appear in the railway company’s timetables later that year. The station’s running-in board read Junction Road for Hawkhurst, even though the village of Hawkhurst was some 4 miles (6.4 km) away and, in any event, had been served by its own railway station for the last eleven years. A lack of funds meant that no station buildings were provided at Junction Road, the station consisting merely of a single unsheltered platform constructed of wood and earth. In February 1910, a siding was commissioned on the Robertsbridge side of the B2244.