The station was finally ours on the 4th of May 1992. Because we were getting married on the 18th of July and intended to move in on our wedding night, there was no time to lose in preparations. The day we completed the purchase we slept in sleeping bags on the floor of what would become our kitchen. At around about midnight there was a sound of footsteps walking through the room, but there was no-one around. I like to feel it was a sign that we were being passed on the custody of the building from somebody who had been there before us, and they were simply leaving. The following day, the floor we had slept on was being ripped up and work began in earnest.
Unforeseen challenges
Having completed the purchase, and with planning permission in place, we still had a final hurdle. There was no water to the building. We turned on all the stopcocks, but there was nothing. Eventually we hired a cat and mouse pipe detector to try and find where the pipes went. To our alarm they were fed from the other side of the railway and there was clearly a break at some point. Where, we had no idea. If it was under the rails we were clearly in for some fairly massive unexpected (and un-budgeted) problems. Thankfully it transpired the pipe had been cut close to the stopcock on the other platform. We were able to mend the join, and arranged to buy water and sewer services from the railway. This was sorted a month after purchase. Phew! A good resolution to a very stressful situation.
One of our first jobs was to open the doors onto the platform, so we could access the rooms that we hadn’t been able to see. Once a passage had been made to join the inside spaces we were then able to brick them from behind, thus retaining the authenticity of the exterior.
When we bought the station our ownership stopped at the walls, with the garden being a few metres away across the station carpark. The carpark outside the house was still owned by the railway and it would be several years before they offered to sell it to us. As a result we were an island in a sea of railway property.
In the early days we became quite used to being surrounded by railway workers, commuters and other people who were using the train. It was often a very busy place, particularly in the mornings and sometimes in the afternoons when the youth of the village would hang out.
Helpers
We weren’t alone in doing the work. Our families came to give a hand (Dave’s Mum Gloria is pictured carrying wood in the image below). One of the greatest helps to us in the early days was Dave’s Grandad Roy, who was a carpenter by trade. He was a lovely man. Rickets had made his legs bowed; he was one of thirteen children who’d grown up in a two bedroomed house in Plymouth with an invalid father and a mother who took in laundry. He was always very resourceful; some of Dave’s happiest memories are of trips to the dump to find treasures with Grandad Roy. He was a star to us, coming most days with a packed lunch Dave’s gran Vera had made for us all, and working tirelessly and cheerfully, whistling as he did so. The first day was comic, as I, in home-maker mode, swept the floorboards while Grandad Roy followed on behind pulling them up.
Grandad Roy always came by train, usually at 8 o’clock. One morning at just after seven I was wanting to open the door, but there was a workman outside whistling, so I decided I’d wait until he was gone. At this time we didn’t own the car park, so railway workers on both sides of the building were a fairly common affair. After some time I finally gave up and opened the door, and there was Grandad, having arrived early. He thought by whistling I’d know it was him and let him in, but it had the opposite effect!
Work begins
One of the earliest jobs we had to do was to knock through into the areas which were inaccessible. To the left of the hall was a door into what had once been a toilet, though the fixtures had been removed, with the exception of a pipe coming up from the ground. Beyond this was the ladies powder room, which was accessible only from a door on the platform, which was firmly locked. The only way to access this area was going to be through the wall. My job was to take a hammer drill to make a hole.
Making a hole was really really hard work. It took all day to get through to the other side, because the wall was as hard as nails. Eventually I made a person sized opening through the wall and we were able to access the room behind.
This room had been the ladies powder room, and was to eventually become a bathroom and a passageway. The floor was completely rotten and there was a drop into a cavity below, so the hole I’d drilled was several feet above solid ground. In the cavity we discovered the remains of old lamp brackets that had been broken up and thrown under the floor, along with the rotten remains of a couple of chairs and some scraps of old railway posters. We were able to rescue enough of the original pieces to be able to restore two lamp brackets out of the five broken brackets. These lamp brackets now hold up the lanterns outside our front door.
A couple of years later, when we came to work on this area of the house in earnest, we discovered that the wall between the hall and the ladies waiting-room was made of soft Victorian brick that simply fell apart at the slightest push. There was a doorway that had been filled in with rock-hard engineering bricks at the exact point I had chosen to make a hole!
Ironically the cavity in this room would have made a good sized cellar, but because it was to become our bathroom and a passage to the music room we needed to lay a solid floor for underfloor heating, so were unable to keep it.
A first job – the carpark side canopy
Because the station building had been empty for so long, and it is long, thin and catches the weather, it was very damp when we bought it and we had a few problems with rotten joists. The drainpipes had become clogged with leaves at the top, which had caused a lot of water to leak into the building. Clogged drainpipes remain a challenge to this day!
We were initially dismayed by the task of rot; it was quite disheartening to see how much damage water had done over the years. But after the initial disappointment we did what was to become the usual; roll up our sleeves and get on with the job.
Because the big joist that was holding up the carpark side canopy was completely rotten and the canopy at that point in imminent danger of collapse, this was a priority job. It was a credit to Victorian over-engineering that the canopy was still in place. The ceiling joists are massive throughout the building; far bigger than might be considered necessary, but lucky for us on many occasions.
We had our first experience of scaffolding, having purchased a modest quantity from an ad in the Cornish Times. We also bought a scaffold tower and a cement mixer, both of which have been enormously useful over the years.
The kitchen
Like much of the structural wood when we took on the building, the kitchen floor joists were rotten, so needed replacing. Dave and his team lined the walls and cellar with polythene in order to create a damp course.
At this time there was a Victorian slate fireplace in the kitchen that had been painted over in white gloss. On one day, early in the conversion, Dave, his Dad John and Grandad Roy were having lunch sitting on the breeze blocks that were awaiting being used for the cellar walls. They’d got a fire going, probably fuelled by rotten wood from the building. The fire surround was a bit loose and had a few missing bits, so Grandad Roy suggested it would be a good idea at that point to dismantle it. Without delay he set to, removing the slate while the fire blazed on regardless. Underneath was a rather interesting looking brick arch. As we were missing a fire surround in the old waiting room, which was the grander of the two rooms, it was decided that the brick arch would stay. Unfortunately the bright green Victorian tiles that had filled the surround were too broken to be worth keeping.
Building regulations specified a floating floor was required to dampen the noise. This certainly added complexity to the build. Joists were laid, with ply-board on and plasterboard under the joists, with a thick layer of insulation between. Onto this we laid dense fibreglass slabs with plasterboard “floating” on it. Pine floorboards were then glued down to this which, under constant onslaught from ongoing building work, rapidly developed a patina in keeping with the age of the building.
There was a cellar under one half of the kitchen, which we kept. A cavity of about 18 inches was retained on the other side to allow air to circulate. Over the years we would extend the cellar, which has proved to be very useful.
There were several comic moments in the early days before we moved in. One memorable night was my hen night in the Eliot Arms. We had a fine time at the pub, then came back to the station to continue the party. The newly laid floor was covered in blue plastic, which was perfect for a riotous night. A gaggle of local boys had followed us home and, because we refused them entry, were standing on the windowsills looking in.
My rather wonderful mother decided that the best course of action to stem their voyeurism was to set to and paint the brand new windows that we’d just fitted with a tin of white emulsion that happened to be sitting on the floor nearby.
As she enthusiastically set about the task I had a meltdown worthy of any self-respecting daughter and asked assertively “What on earth are you doing?” Mum replied confidently that paint comes off windows very easily with a paint scraper. I was less convinced and insisted every little bit of the paint was immediately removed. The stand off didn’t last long, and Mum was soon back in her party organiser role leading charades and games and making sure everyone had a hot drink when they needed one.
Among the many games of the evening were ones involving eating onions. Most of my friends stayed over, and by the time we lay down on the plastic sheeted floor it was light outside. A couple of hours later Dave, his Father and his Grandad came to start work for the day and were greeted by a fine scene; the newly laid floor strewn with bodies, onions, bottles and cans. They seemed a little less than impressed, but there was no damage done and it was the first of many excellent parties to take place in the station.
Looking back it is probably no surprise that Dave ended up finishing making my wedding ring on the eve of our wedding and writing his groom’s speech on the morning itself. I was at Bath College of Higher Education studying Music and English, and had been doing my finals, so was not able to offer many hours help. I graduated on July 11th. From early May to July 18th Dave and his grandad managed to replace the floor in the kitchen, damp-proof and construct the cellar, fit up the doors, install a temporary bathroom and create a makeshift bedroom, so that I could be carried over the threshold on our wedding night.
To be continued…
