Ghosts of stationmasters past are reawakened at Leeming Bar

In the ladies’ waiting room, the hole above the fireplace that once held the gas lamp reappeared. Around it, the fossilised remains of the encrusted, dark wallpaper were still glued to the plaster.

The volunteers had not known what to expect when the empty shell of the Victorian station house at Leeming Bar was handed over to them by the builders after a lottery-funded restoration. They found that even with the floor, roof and windows replaced, history clung to every crevice.

The artefacts exposed by the works represented not the end of the transformation but a new beginning, said Helen Ashworth,” who leads the team of community workers at the Wensleydale Railway.

It will be the volunteers who will finish the job, restoring the Victorian interior to the state it was in during the 1920s when it formed part of the London and North Eastern Railway.

“We’re going to have a stationmaster’s parlour, kitchen, scullery, washroom and a wash yard. And it will all be available for community groups to visit,” Ms Ashworth said.

Leeming Bar, just off the A1, is the hub of the Wensleydale line, which runs through Bedale and Leyburn to Redmire. The engine shed is there, as well as the staff offices, and most passengers use it to start or end their journeys.

The Grade II listed station house – which was the stationmasters’ home through the years as well as a rest stop and ticket office for passengers – had been largely out of use after decades of neglect, when a £368,000 grant was secured to make it structurally sound.

Now that the builders have left, railway workers have begun restoring leatherette, horsehair-stuffed waiting room seats, replica wall units and clocks, all in the once-familiar LNER colour scheme of buff and red.

They are also hacking back the 2ft high weeds that have grown around the track since the last train passed through. The next one is unlikely to arrive before the autumn.

“It’s not exactly a jungle but it is starting to look more like a railway again,” Ms Ashworth said.

The line has survived its enforced summer closure thanks to a separate emergency grant of £50,000 from the lottery, which was agreed at the end of May. But the restoration of the station house continued throughout, and a call has gone out for decorators to finish the job.

The restoration follows an earlier project at Scruton station, the next stop up the line. It had been lost under brambles after closing its doors in 1954 but was reopened 60 years later.

At Leeming, the old ladies’ waiting room will not revert to its original use, however. “Gentlemen were originally expected to wait outside,” Ms Ashworth said. “That’s not a policy we will be enforcing.”

The Wensleydale Railway Trust, which reopened the Dales line in 2003, is hoping to find more pieces of history as it brings the station house back to life.

It has asked locals to check their attics and sheds for original items suitable to decorate a country station, and says old suitcases, clocks and parcels, as well as railwayana, are welcome. Offers of props and services should be made to [email protected].

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