OLD PLYMOUTH . UK
www.oldplymouth.uk
 

RAILWAYS IN OLD PLYMOUTH  |  BRANCH LINE, LAIRA JUNCTION TO SUTTON HARBOUR AND NORTH QUAY (SDR/GWR/BRWR)
MAIN LINE, BRENT STATION TO PLYMOUTH STATION (MILLBAY)

TOTHILL CROSSING SIGNAL BOX (GWR)

Where Tothill Lane joined The Embankment the Plymouth and Dartmoor Railway crossed the Lane by means of an open level crossing.  After the Plymouth and Dartmoor line had been acquired by the South Devon Railway Company and relaid to permit operation with steam locomotives it became necessary to protect the Crossing in a more substantial way.  The Ordnance Survey map surveyed in 1892, after the construction of the Plymouth Number 1 Curve from Lipson Junction to Mount Gould Junction, shows a Signal Box just to the Laira side of the Crossing on what was then the Great Western Railway Company's Sutton Harbour Branch and the London and South Western Railway Company's main line in to Friary Station.

The late Larry Crosier gives the date of the Box as before 1876 and states that as far as he was aware it held a small 16-lever frame.  This controlled not only the Crossing but the points and signals at Friary Junction as well.  Larry states that 'in 1877 an extra gong and block telegraph instrument was authorised at a cost of £57, for the opening of the double line'.  He continues that 'In the same year the crossing gates were reported to have been damaged in an accident, and in 1879 a lad was appointed to attend to the signal lamps, etc.'

Tothill Lane Crossing was done away with in around 1895 when it was replaced by an overbridge and a new Friary Junction Signal Box was opened.