Your carriage awaits...

Entrepreneur Richard Branson would no doubt be delighted to know that part of his redundant Virgin Rail stock has been saved from the scrap yard and put out to pasture in a pretty Yorkshire village.

The old West Coast carriage sports new dark green livery to suit its rural surroundings and now serves as first class accommodation for holiday makers. This innovative recycling is thanks to David and Lizanne Southworth, who now have three carriages on the old Skipwith Station site.

The couple live in the former ticket office that once served passengers on the Derwent Valley Light Railway between Selby and York. It was opened in 1913 and closed in 1985 and was known as the Blackberry Line, a favourite with chocolate factory workers from York who travelled out in their hundreds to pick blackberries.

The track has long gone but the views remain unchanged and the ticket office and carriages overlook fields of barley and the countryside beyond. It was the idyllic location that helped sell the site to David and Lizanne, though the railway connection was also apt. David used to work at the York Carriageworks and is now a freelance railway consultant.

“We wanted something to renovate with outbuildings we could maybe get an income from,” says Lizanne. “We heard about this place from friends and we knew there was something we could do with it.”

The couple, who previously lived in Naburn, bought it seven years ago and it took six months for the sale to go through, by which time they had come up with idea of buying old carriages to convert into holiday lets.

Planning permission turned out to be a major issue. Railway carriages are classed as mobile buildings and even with the help of a consultant it took two years to get the go-ahead. The waiting was frustrating but the Southworths kept busy renovating the ticket office.

Built from wood, the office, with adjoining gents and ladies waiting rooms, was converted in the 1970s and later extended but it was in desperate need of insulation and modernisation.

The couple, who have two children, covered the wooden exterior with insulation and topped it with new breeze block and render to create a duvet-like effect. At the back, they covered the old veranda and added glazed French doors that lead out onto decking.

Keen to respect to the railway heritage, they found some old photographs of the office and added decorative wood cladding, finials and cricket pavilion-style roof tiles to mimic the look of the original building. They modernised inside, but ripped off the old plasterboard to expose the old Yorkshire boarding and the old barrel ceiling in the sitting room.

“It was a challenge,” says Lizanne. “I can remember David’s parents coming round and saying ‘what have you done?’ because they couldn’t understand why we would leave a nice house in Naburn for this.

“There was a tiny, one-bed granny annexe and so there were four of us and two dogs living in there while we renovated the rest of the house.”

Determined to press ahead with the carriage conversions, they made a start without planning permission, knowing they would get it in the end.

“We bought them, converted them and went for retrospective planning,” says Lizanne.

They sourced the first two from an auction at the carriage works at Doncaster six years ago at a cost of £1,000 each. The latest Virgin carriage, bought a year ago from Derbyshire, was £4,000, which reflects the rising scrap value.

After buying some old track to sit them on, the first carriages arrived on low loaders and were craned into place. The transport and crane cost about £5,000. “It was amazing. We had about 40 tons of metal flying over our house. That was a highly emotional day. When the latest one arrived we had guests staying and they were as excited as we were,” says Lizanne.

David, a gifted DIYer who helped design the conversion of the Orient Express, did most of the work himself. It took two years to convert the old mail van, now known as the Derwent Mail, and the first class car, now the Derwent Flyer. The 1970s seats were stripped out and sold to rail enthusiasts.

The steel shell was packed with insulation and the mahogany panels were replaced and painted cream to make the interior lighter. The exterior had to be painted green to suit the planners.

Wiring, plumbing and heating was installed and bedrooms created. Some original features such as luggage racks were retained for storage and the Southworths have added their own “Skipwith Station” and “First Class” stickers to the windows along with memorabilia including railway books, jigsaws and old photographs. They also framed a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem From a Railway Carriage. Much of the furniture is from Ikea and the result s fresh, contemporary and easy-to-clean.

The ex- Virgin carriage, which took nine months to convert and is now called Lady Deramore, will be the last at Skipwith Station, but there’s still a way to go before the Southworths reach the end of this railway-inspired journey.

Their latest project is the re-modelling of the old loading bay, a Nissen hut, that is set to be a contemporary holiday let. “David is busy doing that now. He loves working with his hands, he gets a buzz out of it,” says Lizanne, a garden designer who has transformed the grounds.

“After that we’re going to start again on our house and there’s always maintenance on the carriages,” she says. “There’s always something to do here. I’m not quite sure we’ll ever be finished.”

www.skipwithstation.com

Derwent Valley Railway

Lost line with a wartime past

The Derwent Valley Light Railway was established to provide transport for the agricultural community and the 16 mile route opened in July 1913.

The line was busy during World War II serving government depots but the line south of Wheldrake closed at the end of 1964. The rest closed in 1985. The Yorkshire Museum of Farming acquired a short length of track near Murton in 1983, together with some rolling stock to show how the railway served farmers.

From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson

Faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches; And charging along like troops in a battle All through the meadows the horses and cattle: All of the sights of the hill and the plain Fly as thick as driving rain; And ever again, in the wink of an eye, Painted stations whistle by. Here is a child who clambers and scrambles, All by himself and gathering brambles; Here is a tramp who stands and gazes; And here is the green for stringing the daisies! Here is a cart runaway in the road Lumping along with man and load; And here is a mill, and there is a river: Each a glimpse and gone forever.