Museums on GWR - Restoration & Archiving Trust

We are keen to develop using buildings & other items saved from the developer’s bulldozer where-ever possible and will always be interested to follow up pointers to any items under threat.


Elevated Office A few years ago we collected a number of structures & fittings from the former LNWR workshop in the Lower Yard at Abergavenny Brecon Road. Since the closure of the line through here in the late 1950s, this site had been used as a depot by Monmouthshire County Council, but this has now been closed & the site is being sold for redevelopment. Our thanks go to Roger Hoggins & Mike Parry of the council for much assistance in obtaining the following items. Apart from gas light fittings, cast iron signs, & other small Victorian artefacts we have also obtained the following structures from his site starting with this wonderful elevated office, shown on the left, that would originally have been used by the shop foreman to oversee his workforce. This is now in store at Long Marston awaiting a long term suitable home.

Similarly a former Signal & Telegraph store, on the right, that is believed to have been moved from Brynmawr in railway days was dismantled and still awaits reconstruction at Toddington. This appears to have been reconstructed by the railway utilising parts of earlier buildings including a former colliery sidings signal box. Finally a small wooden office building presumably of London & North Western Railway origin, built in 1874 so pre-dating the battle of the Little Bighorn by a couple of years, was lifted and transported to Toddington intact as can be seen below. This structure is very sound and has since been restored as another exhibition centre located behind platform 2 at Toddington. This is pictured below in its original location in Abergavenny on the left and then upon its arrival at Toddington. Further information regarding its subsequent history can be seen at Toddington East S & T store


Abergavenny Toddington Crane from Usk




Base hole Other items that have subsequently been acquired include a former Midland Railway corrugated iron lamp hut originally located at Stonehouse that had been in use as a garden shed in a churchyard for the last 30 years. From further afield we have also obtained the Great Western Railway goods shed hand crane from Usk that had still seen occasional use by the tenants on the site up until its removal. This has now been re-erected on the bay platform at Toddington as a symbol of the yards working past, with the picture on the left showing the excavation for its base and the rig to hold the supportings bolts in place when the concrete was poured in.



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