Unidentified crossing keeper's cottage

[Grumpy Git]

The fact that this crossing was 'busy" with cars in the original photograph adds weight to the possibility this crossing has totally disappeared under road improvements (bypass etc.) in the intervening years!

Looking again at existing architecture I too now think its somewhere in the Northamptonshire area.

 

[edwin_m]

Here is an undated picture of Lamport station [from ebay]. It has the signal!
http://tiny.cc/43ipzz
And, I believe the station building is shown in this circa 2002 picture [also from ebay]
http://tiny.cc/x3ipzz

And one from facebook stated 1953, there seems to be a small building at the far end of the platform:

View attachment 167051

I think if there was a keeper's cottage in the relevant place, it would be visible on the first linked photo. And that photo also shows a signal box, which would be visible in the OP photo if present. So I believe that rules out Lamport.

I'm also thinking that almost anywhere with a signal box would have it next to the crossing and controlling it, with no need for a crossing keeper and therefore no need for a cottage (the signalman might live nearby but wouldn't need to live within a few steps of the crossing). There are some possible but rather unusual exceptions:

• There are two crossings within station limits, the signal box is next to the other one.
• The signal box can be switched out and during this time a keeper works the crossing (but this would probably be a later rationalisation so the cottage would be more modern)
• There is some other reason for the box to be elsewhere.

 

[eastdyke]

I think if there was a keeper's cottage in the relevant place, it would be visible on the first linked photo. And that photo also shows a signal box, which would be visible in the OP photo if present. So I believe that rules out Lamport.

I'm also thinking that almost anywhere with a signal box would have it next to the crossing and controlling it, with no need for a crossing keeper and therefore no need for a cottage (the signalman might live nearby but wouldn't need to live within a few steps of the crossing). There are some possible but rather unusual exceptions:

• There are two crossings within station limits, the signal box is next to the other one.
• The signal box can be switched out and during this time a keeper works the crossing (but this would probably be a later rationalisation so the cottage would be more modern)
• There is some other reason for the box to be elsewhere.

We established upthread that the 'keeper's cottage' building had been demolished at an earlier time.

But, yes, I thought too that to have a 'keeper's cottage' next to both a signal box and a station was a little incongruous.

Looking at the 1964 [pub. 1965] 1:2500 map there would have been enough space, bearing in mind the taken angle of the photograph, for the SB to be just out of shot.



There was enough room between the road edge and the Lamport SB for the control stuff to install the later barrier crossing.
1980 picture of Lamport SB some time after installation of barriers:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/auchlander/6192829266/in/photostream/

Further note: There was a fire in the signal box 1965, the topside was rebuilt.
The original box can just be seen under the canopy at the right edge of the first linked picture in my previous post.

 

[Shrewbly]

@eastdyke - I think I'm with you.

i) The signal box would probably be just out of shot.
ii) The electricity pole with three insulators on the left of the original photo seems to match the pole on your first photo (visible because the cottage has been demolished).
iii) The crossing is an A road, so that would explain a number of cars.
iv) The signal and gates seem to match (although the telegraph pole isn't there)

 

[Prime586]

We established upthread that the 'keeper's cottage' building had been demolished at an earlier time.

But, yes, I thought too that to have a 'keeper's cottage' next to both a signal box and a station was a little incongruous.

Looking at the 1964 [pub. 1965] 1:2500 map there would have been enough space, bearing in mind the taken angle of the photograph, for the SB to be just out of shot.

View attachment 167065

The 'SP' denoting the Signal Post is in the correct position to the OP's photo too.
Looking at the earlier OS maps, the structure that would be the crossing keeper's cottage is marked quite clearly in the corner between the road and trackbed:
OS 6-inch, 1880s:

OS 6-inch, 1915:

OS 1:25000 1961:

Note that in the 1961 map, the structure in the position of the crossing keeper's cottage is still present, but the signalbox on the other side is not. In the map you posted the signalbox reappears but the crossing keeper's cottage has gone. I wonder if the cottage was demolished when the signal box was rebuilt following the fire?

 

[stuving]

I went looking for newspaper reports of the A508 and its rebuilding, to support Lamport as candidate, but at first most of the news I found was about accidents at the crossing. The MH-Northampton line studiously avoided all the larger villages it passed, mostly by half a mile or more. Lamport village is 40m above the railway, and Maidwell the other way is 30m up, which explains the offset, but also defeated the brakes of many 1930s vehicles. A 1932 news item laments the tenth crash in two years, and was followed by others in 1933, 1934, 1936 ... and in 1939 another tally gave twenty-six in ten years. And the crossing was also said to have a ghost after the line closed!

The worst accident was in 1957, when a motor coach went through the gates and was stuck on the crossing. Fortunately the driver and all forty passengers scrambled out just before it was hit by a train, which is why it got few, small, reports and you've never heard of it. I found only one picture of that, and a few other pictures of 1930s crashes with glimpses of the cottage, but as dark newspaper halftones they are almost useless. What I can see fits with the OP's photo. The clearest is this one, which shows the Valentines with their umpteenth smashed gate, but little of their house.(Northampton Mercury; 16 September 1932)


The cottage was called lots of things, but latterly 1. Lamport Crossing, and was occupied from 1900 to after 1948 by Harriett and Ernest Valentine. He was a initially a signaller, though not always described as such. I imagine that the crossing at the station didn't need a live-in keeper so the cottage was just used for any railway staff, and by the Valentines after he retired.

The Lamport crossing was converted to an MCB in 1965 - a bridge was proposed as a better solution but would cost too much. During the rebuilding work the signal box was destroyed by fire and the signalman had to jump out of the window. My guess is that the roads people were not happy with the widest crossing that would fit between the signal box and the cottage and, as the cottage was empty and living at the end of a station right on the A508 not popular, they took it down.

 

[eastdyke]

@eastdyke - I think I'm with you.

It was @stuving that proposed the location. And their new articles and pictures just posted would seem to confirm that. Chapeau.

OS 1:25000 1961:
View attachment 167072
Note that in the 1961 map, the structure in the position of the crossing keeper's cottage is still present, but the signalbox on the other side is not. In the map you posted the signalbox reappears but the crossing keeper's cottage has gone. I wonder if the cottage was demolished when the signal box was rebuilt following the fire?

The 1961 map is 1:25000, although fully zoomable, Signal Boxes are not a fully featured detail.
From what I understand, the topside of the box only was replaced after the 1965 fire, the 1980 picture shows much older brickwork below the new wooden structure.

But the rebuilt topside lives on! It has been removed to Pitsford and Brampton for use as the booking office on The NLR.



I am sure that the Archivist at NLR would fairly quickly say yes or no to the picture in the OP being Lamport.

 

[Big Jumby 74]

Two points: the window doesn't match that in the OPs photo, and the slightly ridged row of bricks below the window in the OPs picture (midway between window bottom and ground) is absent from the wall in this picture, or possibly is that at shoulder height of the railwayman (if not just a window sill?), and if so higher up than in the OP picture.

 

[Taunton]

The worst accident was in 1957, when a motor coach went through the gates and was stuck on the crossing. Fortunately the driver and all forty passengers scrambled out just before it was hit by a train, which is why it got few, small, reports and you've never heard of it. I found only one picture of that,

This is actually quite a well known accident, and I have seen multiple pictures of it, with the road coach, doing something like Edinburgh to London overnight (so not quite apparent what it was doing here) on the lines, seemingly little damaged, but squashed up against a BR Standard 2-6-0.

 

[eastdyke]

Two points: the window doesn't match that in the OPs photo, and the slightly ridged row of bricks below the window in the OPs picture (midway between window bottom and ground) is absent from the wall in this picture, or possibly is that at shoulder height of the railwayman (if not just a window sill?), and if so higher up than in the OP picture.

The ridged row of bricks in the OP picture is to the end elevation and not seen in the 1932 newspaper picture. The window shown in the latter matches well to the side elevation in the OP.

 

[Grumpy Git]

The angle the A508 crosses the line cetainly fits with it being Lamport as does the height and design of the signal in posts #90 & #93.

It's hard to disagree with this being the location.

 

[Big Jumby 74]

Ah, yes! I see your point (angle of newspaper pic) taken around the side of the cottage, rather than leave the debris on the road side. My error!

 

[stuving]

This is actually quite a well known accident, and I have seen multiple pictures of it, with the road coach, doing something like Edinburgh to London overnight (so not quite apparent what it was doing here) on the lines, seemingly little damaged, but squashed up against a BR Standard 2-6-0.

Yes, my error, I ought to have thought that a group of people with a known interest in pictures of unusual events on railways would be interested!

The coach was going from Rochdale to London, and I reckon it was only about a mile off a great circle course! Which hardly explains a coach driver choosing that route.

 

[WesternLancer]

So is the consensus that this location is at Lamport Station, on the A508? is that looking south or north?

and with pretty much no trace left today - just the cycle path on the former railway line

 

[Nottingham59]

The coach was going from Rochdale to London, and I reckon it was only about a mile off a great circle course! Which hardly explains a coach driver choosing that route.

The A508 is the main road between Market Harborough (on the A6 from Manchester) to Northampton and Stoney Stratford (on the A5 to London). I can well imagine a coach driver choosing that route from Rochdale to London, depending on where in London he was heading.

 

[Shrewbly]

I think it's Lamport Station, looking North West. In that direction the landscape is fairly flat. However there is a hill behind the photographer which runs down to the crossing which may well have caused some of the problems there. (Presumably not the incident with the coach though, because it should have been travelling in the other direction.)

 

[Merle Haggard]

There's a photo of Lamport station, taken in the 1930s when the cottage was still there, in Lost Railways of Northamptonshire (ISBN 978 1 64674 108 1)

The photo was taken from the Up platform (left hand one in the 1915 map) from a point just beyond the waiting shelter, which is the small oblong shown on that platform looking at a loco approaching on the Up line The photo shows the keeper's cottage in the distance on the left. It doesn't rule out the Lamport suggestion, and the height of the signal (though then with an LNWR arm), height of the chimney and position of telegraph pole are all there and correct.

There is a gable above the other side of the roof from the photo, and the ridge of this is the same height as the ridge of the main roof yet not visible in the photo - but would probably be below the sight line. The other end of the building looks wider but that might just be the angle.

The oddity is that the photo indistinctly shows the chimneys but the two are almost but not quite in line from the view of the photo - I would think that they should appear side by side in this view, but not sure.

So highly probable but still a few uncertainties i.m.o.

 

[stuving]

I did start listing the evidence, and here is that now completed. Recent pictures have been found of two extant level crossing cottages on the Northampton-Market Harborough line that match the one in the OP. None have been found anywhere else that are anything like as good a match, so the location is assumed to be on this line.

I can find eight level crossings along this line in the NLS georeferenced 25" maps of 1899. All have a building of about the right size and shape to be one of these cottages, but most are on the wrong side of the railway (or road), i.e. mirrored in site plan. I don't think it matters whether we know why they were built, the fact is that they were. This is what is marked on those maps:

Little Bowden: mirrored, SB, SP away from road
(Clipston & Oxendon shown as a bridge, though the embankment is barely visible now)
Green Lane: mirrored, no SB, no SP
Draughton: mirrored, SB, SP beside SB
Lamport station: right, SB, SP beside cottage
Houghton: right, no SB, no SP
Spratton station: mirrored, SB, SP opposite SB and cottage
Merry Tom: mirrored, no SB, SP opposite cottage
Boughton: high skew, SB, SP opposite cottage (both behind SB)

Only at Lamport station is there a signal post marked in the right place. The two surviving examples are Little Bowden (post #83) and Boughton (#86 and #87). Both and the OP's are very similar if not identical in overall layout and roof form, and the very diagnostic features of the chimneys and barge boards. The front window and door porch are likely to have changed recently, but also vary in the older more limited views. Those items may have been changed early on, following damage (they all faced onto a road) or leaks. Boughton has decorative stonework at the gable eaves, hints of which are seen in other views.

However, while they all have the gable with a verge, only Little Bowden has the near-side "lean-to" extension with a parapet wall front and back. Also the detailing below the gable ends looks like brick, not stone. I'd say that looks like a different builder was employed for some reason, but working to the same drawing. However, it is a surprisingly major difference. The chimneys in the OP's example are a little shorter, too, which could also be one builder's interpretation of the plans.

So, lacking a picture that decides the matter, it does look like the OP's photo shows Lamport station crossing. It was also, I think, the only level crossing on this line with an A road at that date.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

One surprising feature is that the design of the keeper's cottage is quite stylish with its barge boards and chimneys, and quite untypical of the LNWR. Architectural flair and the LNWR do not often go together. Lamport was one of the original stations on the line so one might have expected a consistent style, but the station buildings / house are a more typical LNWR lump. Perhaps the contractor had a copy book pattern of keeper's cottages readily available?

 

[Merle Haggard]

I did start listing the evidence, and here is that now completed. Recent pictures have been found of two extant level crossing cottages on the Northampton-Market Harborough line that match the one in the OP. None have been found anywhere else that are anything like as good a match, so the location is assumed to be on this line.

I can find eight level crossings along this line in the NLS georeferenced 25" maps of 1899. All have a building of about the right size and shape to be one of these cottages, but most are on the wrong side of the railway (or road), i.e. mirrored in site plan. I don't think it matters whether we know why they were built, the fact is that they were. This is what is marked on those maps:

Little Bowden: mirrored, SB, SP away from road
(Clipston & Oxendon shown as a bridge, though the embankment is barely visible now)
Green Lane: mirrored, no SB, no SP
Draughton: mirrored, SB, SP beside SB
Lamport station: right, SB, SP beside cottage
Houghton: right, no SB, no SP
Spratton station: mirrored, SB, SP opposite SB and cottage
Merry Tom: mirrored, no SB, SP opposite cottage
Boughton: high skew, SB, SP opposite cottage (both behind SB)

Only at Lamport station is there a signal post marked in the right place. The two surviving examples are Little Bowden (post #83) and Boughton (#86 and #87). Both and the OP's are very similar if not identical in overall layout and roof form, and the very diagnostic features of the chimneys and barge boards. The front window and door porch are likely to have changed recently, but also vary in the older more limited views. Those items may have been changed early on, following damage (they all faced onto a road) or leaks. Boughton has decorative stonework at the gable eaves, hints of which are seen in other views.

However, while they all have the gable with a verge, only Little Bowden has the near-side "lean-to" extension with a parapet wall front and back. Also the detailing below the gable ends looks like brick, not stone. I'd say that looks like a different builder was employed for some reason, but working to the same drawing. However, it is a surprisingly major difference. The chimneys in the OP's example are a little shorter, too, which could also be one builder's interpretation of the plans.

So, lacking a picture that decides the matter, it does look like the OP's photo shows Lamport station crossing. It was also, I think, the only level crossing on this line with an A road at that date.

Boughton Crossing was on the A50* in my youth, and the photo does to me 'feel' more like Boughton, looking towards the Bramptons.The road crosses the river on a shallow long bridge, more like a causeway, whereas the road at Lamport soon starts to climb.. The cottage was certainly on the right and close to the road when looking in that direction, can't remember which side of the line it was though. I crossed both Lamport and Boughton many times when the line was open and it definitely seems more like Boughton to me. But I may be shot down by the facts! Not sure how much of a skew Boughton is on, just before the crossing the A50 turns sharp left (coming from Northampton) but there's another road (from the A508) that joins it, but this road has more of a straight run over the crossing.
*A lot of traffic from Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire to London used to go A6 to Leicester then A50 to Hockcliffe thence A5 - presumably less congested than the A6 all the way.

 

[Nottingham59]

quite stylish with its barge boards and chimneys, and quite untypical of the LNWR

Yes, but look at the detailing on Market Harborough station, built in 1850, just nine years before the Northampton-Harborough line was added to the network. The detailed design of the top of the chimneys look to me to be identical to those in our picture. So it was typical of that line, if not the rest of the LNWR.

 

[Merle Haggard]

So is the consensus that this location is at Lamport Station, on the A508? is that looking south or north?

and with pretty much no trace left today - just the cycle path on the former railway line

The station building is still there and I think some of the down platform, but well hidden by trees.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Oct 2024 ==

One surprising feature is that the design of the keeper's cottage is quite stylish with its barge boards and chimneys, and quite untypical of the LNWR. Architectural flair and the LNWR do not often go together. Lamport was one of the original stations on the line so one might have expected a consistent style, but the station buildings / house are a more typical LNWR lump. Perhaps the contractor had a copy book pattern of keeper's cottages readily available?

The main station buildings on the Blisworth to Peterborough line were stylish although (presumably later) the waiting rooms were standard LNWR prefabricated wood. Oundle and Wansford still survive, ironically the Northampton Bridge Street one was demolished fairly recently and replaced with a poor 'pastiche' type building not nearly as nice. At the L&B / LNWR change, so probably L&B had high standards.
The Peterborough line station buildings were described as 'Jacobean' and they all also had the two ornamental chimneys arranged diagonally as a feature - although more than one pair..

 

[stuving]

Boughton Crossing was on the A50* in my youth, and the photo does to me 'feel' more like Boughton, looking towards the Bramptons.The road crosses the river on a shallow long bridge, more like a causeway, whereas the road at Lamport soon starts to climb.. The cottage was certainly on the right and close to the road when looking in that direction, can't remember which side of the line it was though. I crossed both Lamport and Boughton many times when the line was open and it definitely seems more like Boughton to me. But I may be shot down by the facts! Not sure how much of a skew Boughton is on, just before the crossing the A50 turns sharp left (coming from Northampton) but there's another road (from the A508) that joins it, but this road has more of a straight run over the crossing.
*A lot of traffic from Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire to London used to go A6 to Leicester then A50 to Hockcliffe thence A5 - presumably less congested than the A6 all the way.

This is Boughton crossing:

That's a very different layout. And it's being largely rebuilt, in road works connected with the Northampton North West Relief Road.

At Lamport the road falls a little away from the crossing, in the direction pictured. The watercourse that defines the valley*, and which the railway follows (less wiggles) as far north as Kelmarsh tunnels, is 200 m on from the crossing. After a gently bend, and a further 300 m, the road starts to rise towards Maidwell. So runaway accidents were on the the steep hill down on the Lamport side; from Maidwell the hill ending some distance away might have led to high speeds in vehicles that struggled to achieve them unaided.

*The Brampton branch of the Nene

 

[Nottingham59]

I found this on Facebook. Apologies if it's been on this thread already

Facebook

www.facebook.com

(Image shows Lamport Station in 1953, showing tall signal in the right place and correct design of crossing gates)

 

[Merle Haggard]

I found this on Facebook. Apologies if it's been on this thread already

Facebook

www.facebook.com

(Image shows Lamport Station in 1953, showing tall signal in the right place and correct design of crossing gates)

Looks like a typical Henry Casserley station photo - just took it from the train, didn't alight!

It's unfortunate that the cottage is hidden by the main station building in this picture; the one I noted above did include it (taken further to the right, in effect) but, as above, I have a slight reservation about the chimney position. I can't post it because of copyright.

The historical information attached to the photo is a bit awry; although the passenger service ended in 1960 and the station goods facilities were closed a little after, it remained the route for Colwick and Toton etc to London through freight traffic. The St Pancras - Glasgow sleeper service was diverted to Euston and ran over it; when this ceased, another passenger closure notice had to be issued (as a result of my reminder to the Ministry...). There were a few charter passenger trains operated around 1973 and, curiously that date is sometimes quoted as the date of passenger closure. Curiously, similar errors appear on the Northampton & Lamport railway website.

 

[Pigeon]

Not Lamport: Lamport crossing keeper's cottage is 90 degrees out of phase.
http://www.stephensonloco.org.uk/Archived pages/SPC and photo sub-pages/sls_what_when_where 197.htm - note barge-boards, but gable end facing the railway not the road; also proximity of signal post to corner of cottage.

(Interestingly, Blixworth station has an absolutely identical house and an identical goods shed too, but no crossing, and the line curves the other way.)

 

[Merle Haggard]

Not Lamport: Lamport crossing keeper's cottage is 90 degrees out of phase.
http://www.stephensonloco.org.uk/Archived pages/SPC and photo sub-pages/sls_what_when_where 197.htm - note barge-boards, but gable end facing the railway not the road; also proximity of signal post to corner of cottage.

(Interestingly, Blixworth station has an absolutely identical house and an identical goods shed too, but no crossing, and the line curves the other way.)

It's hard to describe in words but the gable end in the photo is on a side extension of the main building in the case of Lamport - see my note on the photo in Lost Railways of Northamptonshire. In plan, the cottage makes a T shape (with a short upright) with the end of the upright being what is seen in your linked photo. It's just a pity your photo doesn't show the chimneys as their alignment is the reason for my doubt.

It is fair to say that around here pretty much every level crossing had a signal close to it, and the gate design was probably standard for District (civil) Engineer, Northampton.

Blisworth - Peterborough had a few level crossings, too, and the distinctive chimney design was certainly on the main buildings at least.

I think auto-correct has sabotaged 'Brixworth'.

 

[stuving]

Not Lamport: Lamport crossing keeper's cottage is 90 degrees out of phase.
http://www.stephensonloco.org.uk/Archived pages/SPC and photo sub-pages/sls_what_when_where 197.htm - note barge-boards, but gable end facing the railway not the road; also proximity of signal post to corner of cottage.

Surely that's the other gable - the side-facing one. I don't think we've had a picture so far that shows any cottage with both gables at once, but here's a quick screenshot from Google Street View in 2009, showing the Boughton cottage without trees in the way. It's too fuzzy to clearly show if the barge boards are the same as on the front, but of course they may not have survived. It does look as if the original finial is still there, while the front one has been replaced or lost its pointy end.

Edit: replaced view a bit further round, shows the same barge boards on both gables.
PS: the Geograph picture of little Bowden (post #83) also shows this, though the angle isn't brilliant.

 

[BrianW]

I admire the tenacity, observations, research skills and politeness of discussion on this thread- 118 postings so far and still going. I shall miss it when (if?) the location is eventually agreed- it reminds me of the thread some time ago that identified Cheddington station. What a great 'resource' Forumites are.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Surely that's the other gable - the side-facing one. I don't think we've had a picture so far that shows any cottage with both gables at once, but here's a quick screenshot from Google Street View in 2009, showing the Boughton cottage without trees in the way. It's too fuzzy to clearly show if the barge boards are the same as on the front, but of course they may not have survived. It does look as if the original finial is still there, while the front one has been replaced or lost its pointy end.
View attachment 167240
Edit: replaced view a bit further round, shows the same barge boards on both gables.
PS: the Geograph picture of little Bowden (post #83) also shows this, though the angle isn't brilliant.

That photo is pretty much identical to the view of the Lamport cottage in the picture I've mentioned, and the same angle. To be clear, Lamport, like Boughton, didn't 'stick out' at the gable and my reference to a 'T shape' should have referred to the roof ridge, not the plan.

What's strange is how close the cottages are to the road, with a window giving a good view. Many tears ago, I tried going 'off-piste' at Boughton and the keeper spotted me straight away through the window! Presumably they were so designed toes if someone was waiting to cross could have the gates opened for them.

As an aside, old Accident Reports in Railways Archive can give an insight into working conditions in Victorian times, with an early interest in hours on duty because of safety implications. Few can have worked longer hours than one crossing keeper - the scene of a fatality - who had a Sunday off once a month, otherwise his hours were continuous (although probably little night traffic).