It was also a major railway stop and the West Station terminus was destroyed in 1965 as the main station for visitors arriving for their summer holidays.

It was also where Florence Nightingale helped in the building of the Herbert Home Hospital in 1867. Another famous person here was Robert Louis Stevenson who lived on West Cliff from 1885 -1887 and while here he wrote Kidnapped and the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The house he lived in was named 'Kerryvore' and this came from the lighthouse that his father-in-laws company built off the coast of Argyll.