Wellow Signal Box

Wellow Signal Box

A signal box built in 1892 for the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway. The railway closed in 1966, after which the building was briefly used as an artist's studio and subsequently converted to accommodation with a late 20th-century extension.

The signal box is constructed from blue engineering brick on the ground floor, with a largely glazed first floor and slate-covered roof fitted with timber bargeboards and valencing. The extension uses matching materials with the addition of some red brick.

The building is rectangular on plan, joined to a square-plan extension by a narrow link. The main structure is a single bay, two-storey construction. The ground floor is brick-built; the first floor combines timber and glazing. Access to the first floor is via a dog-leg timber staircase leading to a short balcony at the western end of the box. The first-floor structure projects forward beyond the balcony to create a small glazed porch with a porthole window.

On the north elevation, the ground floor has a six-pane horizontal window. The entrance, fitted with a late 19th-century plank and batten door, sits beneath the overhang of the first floor. The south side has two smaller multi-pane windows; the east end has a single larger window adjacent to the glazed link leading to the extension. The first floor features observation windows formed from side-hung sashes running continuously around three sides, with the south side built in brick. A half-glazed entrance door and porthole window are set within the glazed porch. Below the windows, the first floor is clad in tongue and groove timber. The pitched roof displays elaborately shaped bargeboards, pierced and shaped valencing, and turned finials at the gable apexes. A clock mounted on a scrolled metal bracket is positioned at the north-west corner.

The single-storey extension is built in red and blue brick, with the north elevation clad above plinth level in painted tongue and groove boarding; the other three sides are brick with timber casement windows. The gabled roof matches the signal box with bargeboards, finials and valencing, and contains triangular dormers with similar bargeboards set into the roof slopes.

Inside the signal box, all original signalling equipment has been removed. The ground floor is now fitted as a domestic kitchen with a transverse timber beam forming the ceiling and carrying the floorboards above. An opening through the glazed link provides access to the extension. The first-floor room remains accessible only by the external stair and is entirely clad in tongue-and-groove panelling with moulded edges on each plank; the panelling continues to the roof structure. The south wall has a small brick fireplace with a segmental arched head, now housing a modern wood-burning stove. The extension interior is wholly modern in character, comprising a ground-floor room with exposed roof structure and a basement containing bathroom and steam room facilities.