The Long Shadow of the Arch
Referring to the article by Geoffrey Skelsey in the August editin concerning the above, the muniment room within the arch only held the former London & North Western Railway and constituent companies title deeds, property agreements etc.. The former Midland Railway and constituent title deeds etc. were held in the Deed Room at Derby and the former Lancashire & Yorkshire title deeds etc. were held at Hunt’s Bank opposite Manchester Victoria station.
There is a photograph on page 180 of the book The Railway Surveyors by Gordon Biddle published by Ian Allan in 1990 showing the interior of the muniments room. My fellow Estate Department colleague Jerry Brown, the Regional Deed Custodian, is shown along with his two clerical assistants whose names I regret to say escape me now.
Hugh Gillies-Smith, by email
You might be interested to know that the vexed 1960s rebuilding of Euston station had further vexations in that the ‘Office of Administration Affairs’ be it Council or National Government forbade BR from putting offices or any structure higher than single storey above the new station. Thus precluding BR from valuable rental income when at that time it was scrambling for any funds to support ‘modernisation’. ‘My father, who was at the time ‘Chief Accountant London Midland Region’, was incredulous not to say annoyed that such an edict could be realistic or sensible.
In the early ’60s, of course, we had such luminaries of Transport Secretaries as Ernest Marples, Barbara Castle and Richard Marsh (not too bad in father’s opinion although he approved closure of The Waverley route)! So having turned dozens of times in his grave he would be on the move again with the antics of the Newer Euston station accommodating HS2!
Martin Higginson, by email
For those of us equally interested in the wider significance the various railway companies made on both the social and physical British landscape, lit seems odd that some railway companies prior to the
