A rare find

A wooden bench for Broadway.

Looking forward into equipping P2 at Broadway, we need one of those wooden benches that sat under the platform canopy.

In this 1904 picture, taken shortly after opening, you can see the wooden bench that stood under the waiting room canopy on P2.

These benches, completely made of wood (no cast iron bench ends) are quite rare. They were designed to stand in the dry, but in a lifetime they were invariably dragged out into the open and then started to deteriorate.

Hence it is very unusual to find one intact. We have never seen one for sale at auction, for example.





Great was our surprise when, passing through a local village, we glimpsed a familiar curved armrest in a bus shelter. Surely not? It certainly looked like a wooden GWR bench, but how could it be in a bus shelter in a village without a station?

There it is, that's a GWR bench, isn't it?

We contacted the Parish council and, quoting its poor condition, wondered if we might be permitted to rescue it for Broadway station.

The parish council very kindly said, yes, OK. So on Thursday last we borrowed the company truck and went to pick it up.

The bench was in very poor condition. The bus shelter had a wet floor, and the legs were very precarious. Indeed, one of the six legs was missing altogether.

We talked to our C&W department, who restored the P1 bench at Broadway to beautiful condition. However, they were really short of people with carpentry skills, and couldn't afford to take on another project, so we took the bench to our friendly carpentry contact at Willersey.

On the back of the truck the state of the legs became painfully apparent.

This leg on the corner is missing altogether. In the bus shelter, to make up for the missing leg the bench had been screwed to the back wall of the shelter. That's alright then....

The seat was made of a single plank of wood, something you don't see today. Even the repaired Broadway P1 bench has two planks. Can you make out what was stamped on the bottom?

We lifted it off the truck carefully and put it down in front of the joinery for assessment.

Not easy, if one of the legs is missing, very visible here.

In summary, the seat and back are not bad, but the legs are terrible. The far set of legs and armrest need to be replaced altogether; the nearest set repaired. All of the legs have had some material sawed off the bottom at some time, to cope with decay from the wet bus shelter floor, and to keep the bench level. Also, it is a 10ft bench, but a bit had been sawed out to make it fit a 9'6'' bus shelter. Ouch!

We looked at the bench that was recently donated from Eynsham to see how long the legs were at the bottom. The answer was: a lot longer, so all of the legs will need some patching to bring the seat height up to the normal 17 inches.

At the time of writing we have asked the joiner to give us an estimate for the cost of bringing the bench back into service.  It won't be cheap. At least one end needs to be completely rebuilt.

How this will be funded is not clear yet, but at least we have saved this rare piece of GWR furniture. Let's hope the estimate is not too high.







Wednesday on the goods platform wall.

Five of us this morning, and one man down with a back put out of joint. The skies were grey, and there was plenty of standing water about, left over from 'Dennis' and his minor stirrings afterwards. The forecast for today wasn't too brilliant either, it has to be said.

A large area of the yard at Winchcombe had been reserved for something, with an additional Telehandler hired in too.

Then this substantial lorry turned up and reversed itself into a convenient unloading position.

The reason for the hired in Telehandler soon became apparent, as it was used to unload some huge 'Lego' concrete blocks. These are destined to prop up the cutting slip below the 3 new houses built in the place of the former Harvest Home pub. More details about that can be found on the Drainage blog.






We watched the unloading spectacle for a bit, wondering if the Telehandler + block wouldn't take out one of our parked cars, but no need to worry.

Then we got Maxie out of her hiding place in the lamp hut, set her up on the pedestal and started pulling. It took 11 pulls this morning to coax her into life. The choke is broken, and the temperature on site was only plus 2 degrees. Some reluctance to start apparent then.

We had course No. 7 up last week, so today we made a start on No.8. Four spots were set up along the wall, and we remarked how much easier it is now to lay bricks, as we can now work almost standing up.

The four brick layers set up position just about equidistant along the wall, and worked towards each other.

Here Neil and Dave are about to meet.







Unfortunately before we could ready the second mix it started to rain, later in quite a persistent manner. We decided to stop for an early lunch, and sit it out and see if it would dry up in the afternoon.

Sadly it did not, the rain just got steadier, and we couldn't work with mortar in this wet weather. It's the first time we've been rained out.

This then is the site at the end of the day, with most of the action at the far end.

Better luck next week.

The contractors working on the slip weren't using mortar of course, so the manipulation of the blocks continued right through the steady rain.

Here they have all been taken off the lorry, and two are being loaded into a 9 ton dumper, which then took them to the slip site on the other side of the road.

Rain or no, Usk related work continues behind the scenes. When the joiner took the new window apart for repair he found that the metal strip on which the rollers ran was heavily cratered. This could explain why one of the little brass window rollers was seized, and had dragged along and worn itself a flat spot.

In the picture you can see a new running strip fabricated, and the roller in the foreground has been beautifully repaired by John from the canopy gang.

Underneath is a new poster frame being put together. This one is also for Broadway; there is room for 2 more double royal ones, and two quad royal ones. Four GWR travel posters on laminated aluminium sheets have already been ordered for them.

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Tomorrow your blogger will sit down in a chair and someone will poke a hole in his eye with a sharp instrument. A machine will then suck out the contents of his lens! Yes, it's a cataract operation. Reason for this blog to hit the 'Pause' button for a short while.

See you again soon then - perhaps even a bit more clearly ;-)