Bodmin Parkway Signal Box

This is an 1887 signal box built for the Cornwall Railway, with alterations in the early to mid-19th century and later adapted into a café in the 1980s.

The building is constructed of rubble stone to the ground floor and red brick above, with timber framing including a cill beam. Part of the rear wall is clad in weatherboarding. The pitched roof is covered in slate, featuring timber eaves brackets, gable ends, bargeboards, and two cylindrical metal ventilators along the ridge. Timber frames surround the windows, and the interior is lined with timber plank panelling.

The signal box is rectangular and two storeys high. The principal elevation faces north-west towards the tracks from the down platform. The former operating room on the first floor has continuous horizontal sliding timber sash windows, subdivided with glazing bars and supported on moulded cills, to the front and side elevations. The sashes to each end wall have been replaced. The ground floor is brick-built in Flemish bond, with a wide central opening protected by steel bars beneath a soldier course. The lower courses are of rubble stone, and the southwest corner is constructed of a darker brick. A wide opening with fixed timber glazing bars and six over six panes – with one top-left pane replaced by a ventilation fan – is set into the rear wall's weatherboarding at upper level.

A modern steel staircase provides access to the first-floor operating room, with a timber plank balustrade attached to a weatherboarded cupboard. Below the staircase are brick and concrete steps leading to a storeroom, which has an opening in the rear wall obscured by weatherboarding and the raised road level. This opening is set within a thick, coursed-stone wall and has timber glazing bars. The wide front opening, facing the platform, retains timber frames, while a deep timber beam forms a bench that spans the building's length, with large bolts protruding from it. The first floor is supported by two oak cross-beams. The ground floor is laid with railway sleepers. The braced plank door is secured with strap hinges.

The operating equipment, including the lever frame, has been removed from the upper floor. A flue in the southwest corner wall has been sealed. Most walls are lined with vertical timber planks, and there is a timber ledge beneath the windows. Modern additions include café counters, a sink, and a pine-clad ceiling.

Certain modern features, as specified under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, are not considered to be of special architectural or historic interest.