Son boosts restoration of Victorian signalbox where late father worked

VOLUNTEERS are close to completing the major restoration of a Victorian era London & South Western Railway signalbox that has been matchfunded by the son of a signalman who operated the ’box seven decades ago.

The 20-lever ’box, which is believed to date from 1877, was at Liphook station, between Guildford and Petersfield on the WaterlooPortsmouth via Woking line. On opening, it replaced two huts at either end of the station that were manned by railway policemen, the forerunners of today’s signallers, and is one of only two such LSWR Type 2 ’boxes that survive.

It remained in daily use until February 1975 and was saved for preservation by the Hollycombe Steam Collection, which lifted it by crane and relocated it by lorry to the collection’s location two miles away. There it became a popular public attraction, but it was closed in 2014 for a major restoration, which started five years later following a fundraising campaign and is now close to completion.

In a boost to the £10,000 project, match-funding for the work came from Mike Lamport, whose father Matt worked at Liphook station either side of the Second World War, including being the signalman there from 1948 to 1956.

Mike, who is 76 and lives at Ely, followed in his father’s career railwayman footsteps, starting as a BR accounts clerk at Woking in 1964, becoming public affairs manager for Network SouthEast, and retiring from National Express in 2008.

He has clear memories of his father’s time at Liphook and readily recalls one experience at the station when he was just three years of age.

“It was a warm, sunny afternoon in 1951, and I was brought to the station to see my dad, only to be handed up to the fireman of a Drummond ‘Black Motor’ 700 class 0-6-0 that had arrived in the Up platform with a parcels train,” he reminisced.

“All went well until he lifted me higher and bid me to pull on what looked like a piece of dirty thin rope looping down from the cab roof.

Deafening whistle

“He pulled it down further, and with my tiny hand still touching it, there came a deafening whistle. At this point, I was hurriedly handed back to the comforting arms of my mother, still bawling my head off.

“It didn’t put me off railways, as 70-odd years later, I am still just as interested!”

Of his decision to give financial support to the signalbox restoration, Mike said: “Before my dad died, I told him his story would be told. I knew the restoration would be a long job, but I am delighted with the outcome, and I know my dad would have been as well.”

Matt Lamport, who died in November 2014 at the age of 91, was born in Godalming and launched his railway career in 1939 as a 16-yearold junior porter for the Southern Railway at Liphook. After serving in the Second World War with the Royal Artillery on coastal anti-aircraft guns, he returned to Liphook, which during the conflict had become a hive of activity due to the location there of a large Corps of Royal Engineers’ depot.

His first postwar role at the station was as a goods porter, and after Nationalisation in 1948 he was promoted to signalman at the station, in which role he remained until promotion in 1956 to the busier signalbox at Shalford Junction, where the Portsmouth and Redhill lines meet south of Guildford.

Family lineage

Four years later he became stationmaster at Selling in Kent, followed by promotion to Esher in Surrey and Guildford, where he was assistant stationmaster, and subsequently stationmaster at Havant, where more than a century before, his maternal grandfather had worked on the railway. His final position prior to retirement in August 1984 was stationmaster at Haselmere, where he was responsible for a number of stations, including Liphook, where his railway career had started 45 years earlier.

Speaking after his final railway shift, Matt said: “If I was asked to sum up what was the best thing about being a railway signalman, it was the feeling of responsibility that came from the trust that the railway had in you to keep it and its passengers safe at all times.”

The Hollycombe Steam Collection, which dates from the late 1940s, is a working steam museum. Among its attractions are two railways offering public rides, one of 1½ miles in 2ft gauge, with both steam and diesel locomotives, and another in 7¼in gauge also with steam.

Museum manager Lucy Dyke said: “A huge thank-you to Mike and his family for helping us to achieve our ambition to restore the ’box.”

Lighting-up time: The former Liphook station signalbox, at its home beside the Hollycombe Steam Collection clock tower, lights up a dark sky. Opened by the LSWR, believed to be in 1877, and closed by BR 98 years later, the ’box is currently in the final stages of a major restoration that has been matchedfunded by the son of a signalman who worked in the ’box in the early 1950s. HOLLYCOMBE STEAM COLLECTION ARCHIVE

TRANSPORT TREASURY/ROY HOBBS EMU calling: Southern Railway 2-NOL EMU No. 1847 calls at Liphook with a Waterloo-Portsmouth train on June 8, 1958, while a porter walks to the far end of the opposite platform to await the arrival of an Up train approaching in the distance. Another SR reminder is a target station sign on the lamppost on the left, an example of which sold for £1100 at auction in July 2022. The station’s Victorian signalbox was saved for preservation when it closed in 1975 and is close to reopening after a major restoration.

MIKE LAMPORT Boxed in: A relaxed Matt Lamport smiles for the camera during a shift in Liphook signalbox, where he worked from 1948 to 1956. His son Mike is match-funding a restoration of the ’box, which closed in 1975 and was preserved by the Hollycombe Steam Collection.