LNER Route: Leicester to Marylebone

Staverton Road Signal Cabin

Staverton Road Signal Cabin stands on the embankment of the Great Central Railway's line between Braunston & Willoughby and Charlwelton stations, adjacent to A425. It lies on the Northamptonshire side of the Northamptonshire - Warwickshire border and in reality wouldn't have been included on this website other than by the happy accident that these photographs were sent to me by Gordon Coltas as being within Warwickshire. As they are of a important period of change not recorded elsewhere on the former GCR line within the county, I have decided to include them on the basis that within a short distance from Staverton these locomotives would have been working just as hard but within the county. Staverton Road was not a strategic or special location, but for one photographer it was a good place to take photographs. Many of the photographs on this page are credited to Gordon Coltas, as are many others at Braunston & Willoughby station and indeed across the whole website. Whilst I have credited these photographs to Gordon, from whom I purchased them in the late 1970s, they are in fact undoubtedly the work of HJ Stretton-Ward, a local photographer, whose interest in railways started before the First World War.

Stretton-Ward's collection was sold on his death by his 'girlfriend' with whom he lived with, together with his wife, in Leamington. Many photographs were sold directly to collectors by Stretton-Ward but it was Stretton-Ward's girlfriend who sold both photographs and negatives onto other collectors, with Gordon Coltas apparently buying the lion's share. Roger Carpenter, who also bought some of HJ Stretton-Ward's collection to add to his own considerable library of photographs, was the person who first confirmed to me that both photographs and negatives were sold to different people. Patrick Kingston, a notable author and photographer from Leamington also told the same story, plus recounting too that Stretton-Ward, wearing his characteristic 'plus fours', wasn't the nicest of people. All of this is why the same photograph may be attributed to two or more people in various publications (particularly the Great Western Railway Journal which nearly always credits such photographs to Stretton-Ward). The photographs taken at Braunston & Willoughby during 1928 would seem to prove the point as Gordon was too young to have taken the photographs. Irrespective of who actually was the real photographer we must at the very least recognise and appreciate Gordon's role in ensuring that this valuable collection has been preserved. We must therefore thank the Gordon Coltas Photographic Trust for ensuring its survival after his demise in the same way that the Lens of Sutton Association supports John Smith's collection.