Stepping back in time

This month’s progress started with some feedback and research from our readers. It is with great thanks to the Brighton Society that we can now recognise that our carriage was built in 1875 and taken out of service in 1899, and, in collaboration with this information. From this information we know that the carriage most likely came into the garden in 1899 and we’d like to thank Sam Burns, our friend, in finding the 1901 census for our house. We think we know just how the railway carriage happened to end up in our back garden!

According to this Census a former owner of our house, Mr Stephen Schoood used to work on the railway as a plate layer which the modern equivalent is a p-way man (someone who worked trackside, repairing and maintaining the track and lineside infrastructure). This could mean that he could’ve had connections with the staff on the railway and this means he may have been able to keep one of their carriages as it was coming out of service. I don’t know why he selected the one he did, nor why he would’ve wanted to trek it 2 miles from the nearest station to home, but thanks to him, we have something to look after and cherish.

Further into the month, we began doing our own research into just how common it is for people to have carriages like ours in their back garden. Our little search paid off as, through connections of work, we found that in some places, people have converted their little carriage into homes with thatched roofs with fire place, just so that they can have their own little glimpse of the past, like ours. Although unique to us, we didn’t realise that anyone could share the same story as we can.

Putting the information aside, we continued on with the recreational work. After repainting and redoing the wood on the guards half of the carriage, we took off the cladding on the passenger side and began to attack that.

The wood on the passenger side, although in better condition, had to be completely refitted, alike that of the guards half. Upon taking off the wood and placing new wood onto the surface, we found that the windows had dropped quite significantly with time. On top of the windows there was a considerable gap between the vent shafts and the window itself. Seeing this as another opportunity for the rain to kill off more of the carriage, and make it mouldier, we replaced the windows immediately. We fixed and fitted the new windows and ensured that they were both draft, and rain proof. She looked beautiful! … so we decided that we’d rip her floor out and re do it all again as, clearly, she wasn’t given the structural support she desperately needed in her old age.

We began her operation with intense pressure on her, and our shoulders. We began to place acrows from her floor to her ceiling, thinking that the pole precariously balanced in the middle was sufficient enough to hold her in place, and that the acrows were just a temporary precaution, much alike a heart monitor in an actual operation. We were however proven wrong. The flimsy piece of wood that stood at her centre was actually as good as a twig at supporting her, with a hugh hole under it, it was taking no weight at all. It may as well not have been there at all. The acrows were now the only thing holding her up. With this in mind, we made sure that the carriage was structurally sound before we endeavoured to do more work on her.

Inevitably we began to tear out the floor board-by-board, every piece of her old, rotten and wonderful history being taken from her like an old hip in an old person. Once her floor was out, we dug down deeper into the garden beneath her until we were adequately sure that the floor was even, and about 2 feet lower than we were originally at. After, we thought it would be a good idea to use a more permanent way of keeping her propped up, so we brought in some railway sleepers which we cemented into the floor to, well, ‘sleep’beneath the carriage so that she doesn’t slip further away from us.

As of now, our carriage is suspended 2 feet above the ground with 4 railway sleepers holding her in place. Will she make it to the next episode? Tune in to find out.