Mystery concrete structure

[Guest Jack Benson]

The image was at captured at Downton on the SDJR, the object of interest is the little concrete structure, possibly a product of Exmouth works but it appears to be too small to be a hut, what is it?  Best guess, is a store for inflammables but why on the opposite of the trackbed remote from both the redundant signal cabin (unseen at the far end of the platform) and the main corrugated store beside the station. 
 

Usually the LSWR would use corrugated iron to store inflammables and the design is fairly uncommon.

 

Thanks for looking
 

 

 

 

[bécasse]

While I have never seen a hut of this precise design before, and I started looking out for LSWR/SR/BR(S) concrete products almost sixty years ago, I can confirm that it is definitely an early Exmouth Junction product, probably pre-1930, the roof design is definitive and was used on both small fogman's huts and rather larger storage huts, both of which had plain panels for their three walls plus wooden doors. It may have been an experimental design which demonstrated that plain walls were better than panelled ones even if they used more concrete in their construction and were therefore heavier to handle. I have come across odd one-offs before during my observations and it is clear that the civil engineers were continually refining the design the products turned out by the concrete works. One interesting aspect of this (which you won't find mentioned in Southern Nouveau) is that the majority of designs were subtly, but obviously, revised immediately after WWII. It would be easy to assume that this was a result of nationalisation but in fact the majority of the revised designs first saw the light of day in 1947 or early 1948, and I now suspect that the redesigns came about as a result of the need to reduce the amount of steel reinforcing (in short supply post war) included.

 

Another interesting initially prevalent but short-lived Exmouth Junction product was the concrete signal post, distinctive because it was solid without lightening holes, which started to be used in the summer of 1926, initially for new-works but very quickly for wide scale replacement of pre-grouping wooden posts too, but which was suddenly superseded by rail-built posts at the end of 1929. Very similar concrete posts continued to be used for yard lighting, and those signal posts which had been installed often survived for forty years, so there was clearly nothing wrong with the concrete post structure per se - my suspicion is that the relative difficulty of making S&T alterations led to their fall from grace.

 

Returning to the depicted hut, I suspect that it is larger than you think and perhaps to the same overall dimensions as the plain-wall storage hut. I wonder if other photos exist showing the hut from different angles but, sadly, photos of any of the stations on that line are rare.

[phil_sutters]

There was one of the plain-sided concrete huts just west of Highbridge C (later East A) box on Highbridge Wharf. I think there was also one near the box at Priory Road.

[bécasse]

Taking the two photos together, I wonder now whether it isn't one of the standard concrete storage huts with the back concrete wall substituted by a timber framework with vertical timber planking mounted on the inside of that framework. The reason for doing so isn't obvious but it may be that there was an identified potential need to subsequently locate the doors there (instead of on the far side of the hut) - swapping the timber "wall" and the doors would have been a relative simple task well within the capability of the local pw gang.

 

I think that I made a drawing of the storage hut that was located on the island platform at Morden South, if I can find it I will post a copy here.

[bécasse]

If I actually prepared a drawing of the concrete hut at Morden South, I couldn't find it. I did find my original notes (of 22 March 1969!) and have appended them and also a note on the sizes of the comparable, but naturally smaller, fogman's hut. The additional height of the apex of the roof is necessarily an estimate. I think that the dimensions are a good match with the apparent size of the hut at Downton.

Edited June 6, 2022 by bécasse

[keefer]

Another pic, though not as clear:

(c) Dave Bevis, licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.