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LINCOLN 1941-1/0/10009 BRAYFORD WHARF EAST 09-MAY-07 East Holmes Signal Box II Railway signal box. 1873 for the Great Northern Railway. All-timber construction with a slate roof. A design of 1871 type, with vertical timber panelling, ornate bargeboards and finials. The locking room is blind on the track (south) side and has a 6-over-6 pane sash window on the east and west sides. The operating room is glazed on three sides, with 9-paned sliding sash windows on the track side and 6-paned ones on the gable ends. Below these on the track and east sides is a further tier of windows, now boarded up, which extends down to the operating room floor. There is timber panelling between the windows and eaves, and a narrow walkway outside the windows which is supported on cast iron brackets with decorative quatrefoils. The walkway handrail is a modern replacement. The gable ends have fretted bargeboards and spike finials. There is a part-glazed entrance door on the first floor and an external metal staircase replacing the original timber one. INTERIOR: The box houses a 35-lever frame by McKenzie & Holland which was fitted in 1910. HISTORY: East Holmes Signal Box was opened by the Great Northern Railway in May 1873. It is the second oldest GNR box to survive, the earliest being Barnby Moor & Sutton (1872). GNR signal boxes were the least standardised of any of the major railway companies because they were often contracted out to local builders. While the design was broadly set in 1871 - including gabled roofs with elaborate bargeboards and finials - there were many variations in detail and almost every box built in the 1870s was slightly different. East Holmes is unusual in having a lower tier of operating room windows to improve the signalman's view along the line, a feature which is found on the boxes of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway but is quite rare on the GNR. The main function of East Holmes was to control the junction and a deviation around it for through traffic, but it also protected the now-disused swing bridge across the canal. In 1910 the original lever frame was replaced with a 35-lever one by McKenzie & Holland. SOURCES: Ordnance Survey Map 1889. Michael A. Vanns, Signal Boxes (1997), 26-9. Michael A. Vanns, An Illustrated History of Great Northern Railway Signalling (2000), 75-90. Peter Kay and Derek Coe, Signalling Atlas and Signal Box Directory, Great Britain and Ireland, 2nd edn (2004), 17. http://www.signalbox.org, accessed on 24 January 2007. SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: East Holmes Signal Box was opened by the Great Northern Railway in 1873. It is the second oldest GNR box to survive, and the oldest still in use to date. It retains the distinctive ornamental bargeboards and finials characteristic of the early GNR boxes. While most boxes had a brick base, East Holmes is unusual in being constructed entirely of timber. It has a rare lower tier of operating room windows to improve the signalman's view along the line. The metal staircase is a modern replacement. Sources Books and journals Kay, P, Coe, D, Signalling Atlas and Signal Box Directory of Great Britain and Ireland, (2000), 17 Vanns, M, Signal Boxes, (1997), 26-29 Vanns, A, An Illustrated History of Great Northern Railway Signalling, (2000), 75-90

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