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St James Deeping Signal Box
“The Signal Box That Wouldn’t Lie Down” by John McGowan
The Story of the St James Deeping Signal Box: Its birth, death and eventual reconstruction.
The Lincolnshire Loop Line opened in 1848 and was, for a short period, the main route to the North and Scotland. The final section, from Peterborough to Boston, is the only section that remains open today and it has been upgraded to allow more freight traffic to pass along it.
The Deeping St James Station opened on the 1 August in 1849. It was renamed ‘Crowland /St. James Deeping’ in 1850 and then changed again to St James Deeping in January 1851. The train station was closed to passengers in 1961 and to goods traffic in 1964; the main produce to travel from Deeping St James was potatoes. The station also served the nearby brickworks owned by the Great Northern Railway. A campaign to reopen the Deeping Station was launched in 1995 but failed due to the fact that the station is a long way away from the town. In 2000 plans were made to bring a link from the station into the Deepings – that also failed.
In 1876 a Signal Box was built to control train movement by signals and allowed the signalman a good view down the line to his signals. He controlled the progress of trains along the Loop line, which was regulated by a ‘block system’, between the Peterborough power box and the Littleworth signal box and this continued until the line was automated. The Deeping box also controlled the Fox Covert Crossing after the Peakirk signal box was closed.
these 1875-78 examples retained the large roof overhang. Another unusual feature was the provision of sash windows for the locking room. (From the ‘Signal Box’ website.) The signal box received a new lever frame in 1941, marked LNER. The signal box house, where the signalman and his family lived, was still there in 1973 but by 1982 it had been demolished.
In July 2013 the then Culture Minister Ed Vaizey announced the preservation of 26 ‘highly distinctive’ signal boxes. Almost at the same time Network Rail released plans to close and demolish the signal boxes along the Lincolnshire Loop line as part of a £280m modernisation of the line between Doncaster and Peterborough, part of the previously mentioned upgrading. The crossings were to become automated and controlled from a distant central hub.
A local campaign was started in an attempt to preserve the Deeping box and a meeting was held in September 2014 between the Deeping public and Network Rail, who explained that the protest had come too late, as all the appropriate permissions had been obtained and a schedule of work was underway. The new
automatic gates were to be sited inside the space currently occupied by the box. There was to be no reprieve for the existing box and it was duly demolished on the 23 October 2014.
The campaigners had put forward another plan, supported by the local Members of Parliament, requesting that the box be sensitively deconstructed and the component parts stored, until a plot of land could be purchased for the box’s eventual reconstruction. A government grant and DSJ United Charities helped that plan on its way and land has been purchased not far from the old station master’s house, along Station Rd in Deeping St James. Currently the various parts of the box are stored in containers on a farmer’s field nearby the eventual site of reconstruction.
The eventual aim of the campaign group, now called ‘St. James Deeping Signal Box Group’ with charitable status and a Facebook page, is to rebuild the signal box and use it as a heritage centre, linking with other local
amenities such as the Exotic Pets Refuge and the Deeping Lakes Wildlife Trust.
In March 2018 the turf was lifted by Sir John Hayes MP at the start of the reconstruction. Work has now commenced on the site with participation from students from Stamford College and local trades people, including Bob Broughton, Gavin, Mark Ducker, with help from Breedons, Prentice Bros, Reg Addy and local councillors as well as the construction team currently working at the Deepings School.
A funding application has been made to the National Lottery with help from Alison Berwick and Claire Saunders at SKDC. At the moment, in the light of the current health crisis, work at the site has stalled as has the application.
Local Artist John McGowan became aware of the box’s planned demolition in July 2013 and set about making a series of limited edition screenprints that would capture the unique qualities of the Victorian boxes. He has made four prints which feature the Deeping Box and has made a reproduction of his St James Deeping print available to the ‘Support Our Signal Box’ group to raise funds for the project.
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