 Station Name: YARMOUTH SOUTH TOWN
One of very few known photographs showing with any clarity South Town station concourse virtually in its entirety and when still in use. An Eastern Daily Press photograph dating from Wednesday 14 July 1954, stationmaster M. E. Lawn is seen beside the barrier leading to platforms 3 and 4. Six other staff members are visible, of which five are also posing for the camera. The open door, left of centre, led through the booking hall and out onto the station forecourt. Mr. Lawn and his family's accommodation was on the first floor above the booking hall, the pitched facade, present on both faces of the building, was deceiving and much of the roof was actually flat - see photographs of the exterior. The open door at far left led into the stationmaster's clerk's office and then the stationmaster's office. The 1952 BR alterations to Yarmouth South Town are well known, although it is not immediately obvious from this view that the changes had already taken place. The original trainshed roof, removed in 1952, extended back to cover the concourse and was to a clerestory design but the rather factory-like roof seen here predated this alteration and is thought to have been erected following damage during WWII. The suspended fluorescent lighting had been installed in 1952 and replaced gas lighting. At extreme bottom right was the end of the tracks serving platforms 2 and 3. The short undercroft, discernible here by the brickwork, was formed by the addition of a concrete raft installed by or during 1952 but why this was done is unclear. Readers above a certain age will remember the wire litter bins of the type seen here fixed to the railings. Usually seemingly always full, they emitted a most unpleasant odour and during summer were a magnet for wasps. Hardly a scrap of litter is to be seen on this occasion and no doubt some tidying up was undertaken prior to the camera arriving. The sign partially visible at far left states 'Refreshment & Waiting Room'. This facility was a new addition to the building in 1952 and is the rather incongruous flat-roofed appendage visible in later photographs of the exterior of the station building. Its construction necessitated the shortening of the track into Platform 4 by a few yards. The open doorway leading through the booking hall was one of two public entrances/exits, the other being out of view behind the W. H. Smith bookstall. The doorway visible here was originally the exit from the arrivals platform, later Platform 3, while the other was for departing passengers. This tidy arrangement also suited the clockwise flow of road vehicles around the forecourt. To the right of the open doorway stands a British Automatic Co. Ltd. (BAC) label stamping machine. Just visible on its slanting face is the pointer and dial; the dial was marked with letters, numerals and other figures such as '&'. Users inserted a coin, which for many years was 1d, selected each required character and pulled a lever for each one up to a maximum of ten. This stamped the selected characters on an aluminium strip and once complete another lever was pulled to cut off the strip which then dropped into a tray in the front of the machine. These stamped labels would be tied to luggage, kitbags, bunches of keys, bicycles or indeed onto anything which one felt a label was a good idea. Whilst the idea was ostensibly a good one, in practice these purely mechanical machines were slow to use and often surrounded by groups of children who thought them jolly good fun. Nevertheless BAC label stamping machines were a common site at railway and some tube stations among other public locations for a great many years. BAC also produced weighing machines, vending machines for sweets, chocolate, Aspirins, cigarettes etc. as well as platform ticket issuing machines. To the right of the BAC machine and beneath the clock is Finlay's tobacco kiosk. Finlay & Co. Ltd. dated back to 1847 and, like the BAC machines, were a familiar site at railway and tube stations and other public locations. Perhaps less well known is that they also ran conventional newsagent shops on the proverbial High Street. The original Finlay company went into receivership in 1989 and was eventually sold. To an extent competing with W. H. Smith, Finlay's station kiosks, which were not all as small as that at South Town, tended to focus more upon the sale of cigarettes, tobacco and fancy goods with Smiths being more a conventional newsagent but there nevertheless was always a degree of conflict. The kiosk is seen here in the position earmarked for it on British Railways station plans of 1952 but where it had stood previously is unclear. The arched window behind the kiosk had been the rear window, with fluted glass, of the original ticket office which was relocated in 1952 to the southermost end of the booking hall, ie to the right in the above view. Thereafter a Benn & Cronin train indicator board stood in the booking hall directly behind the Finlay's kiosk but whether this was the same indicator which had stood outside overlooking South Town Road is not known. In all probability, however, it was. W. H. Smith needs no introduction and of course is still very much with us today. The camera is looking here at the rear of the bookstall, the counter sensibly facing the booking hall to attract passengers as they walk towards the platforms. Between the bookstall and railings stands the well known pair of benches decorated on each end with representations of fish and shells, see photograph elsewhere in these pages. Among the more substantial alterations of 1952 were the various rooms on the right. These rooms have been described elsewhere but to recap they were the original waiting rooms, toilets and staff facilities. The arch second from left (right of the bookstall) had once been a doorway but in 1952 was partially bricked-up from the ground upwards and a counter and roller shutter installed. The annotation on BR's 1952 plan states "Form new luggage counter and fit wooden roller shutter" and as this photograph shows this is exactly what happened and we know from the 1952 plans that this formed the Left Luggage office. However, it can be seen that the sign above the hatch has been covered over with sacking, so the hatch is out of use. Behind the first doorway (partly obscured by the bookstall and with a 'Parcels' sign above it), the hatch and the second doorway was a single large room which doubled as a Parcels and Left Luggage office. From this we are left to assume both parcels and luggage were, by 1954, dealt with via the door way to the left. There was also a Left Luggage Store to the north side of Platform 4 but quite why this was deemed necessary is unclear. Staying with the righthand side of the photograph, the floor-standing machine against the wall appears to be a vending machine of some description, perhaps vending every cleaner's nightmare - gumballs. The year 1954 was still in the age of colourful posters and several can be seen in this view but unfortunately none are readable..
Photo © Archant/EDP and reproduced by kind permission of Archant's Image Curator, Norwich.  Home Page
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