Signal Box At Horsham Railway Station

877/0/10014

Signal Box at Horsham Railway Station

16-APR-02

GV II Railway signal box. Circa 1938. International Modern Style type 13 signal box built for the Southern Region. Built of brown brick with flat roof, concrete cornice and canopy to upper floor. This is one of the larger type of signal boxes of two storeys with ground floor housing equipment and staff accommodation and upper floor the operating floor. Upper floor has five timber operating windows on each side with plateglass and rounded corners. Ground floor is much longer and rectangular in shape with moulded concrete cornice and "HORSHAM" in large lettering. Three central windows are tripartite horizontally glazed metal casements. The three right side windows are double metal-framed casements and the left hand side had three similar casement windows but the two nearest the centre have been blocked. Two doors. End has large opening with flat arch.

INTERIOR: Not inspected but internal equipment reputed to be of interest. Signal Boxes of this type had mechanical or power frames.

HISTORY: The first Modern Movement Southern Region signal boxes were at Millbrook and Southampton Central in 1935 but these were rectangular in shape. The first type 13 design was built at Surbiton in 1936. By 1940 more than a dozen signal boxes had been built to this design. This example is illustrated to represent the type in "The Signal Box" 1985.

["The Signal Box" Signal Box Study group OPC 1985.p199 and Plate345. ]