This former Shepherd Neame house, and before that Charrington's, was at one time known as the Railway Hotel. It was built in 1865 just two years after the London, Chatham and Dover Railway reached Birchington. The railway generated something of a local economic boom. The hotel was built to cater to the influx of holidaymakers. Many visitors liked the resort so much that they purchased a bungalow and became villagers themselves, using the Seaview as their local. In 1865 the original hotel was much smaller. By the turn of the century it had incorporated the adjoining Pond Cottage to extend to Prospect Road. The Seaview has an attractive garden, containing two blocked-up wells, one of which is said to be 240 ft deep, plus an unusual decorative feature of two rib-bones from a whale.