Great Western Coffee Shop

One man's passion will become the sale of the century on Saturday when a collection of "railwayana", including a door from Queen Victoria's Royal Train, goes under the hammer on the site of a famous railway.

The unique archive of hundreds of Southern Railway and Southern Region items was collected over a lifetime by the late Peter Smallwood, a retired shop worker from Bournemouth, Dorset. In tribute to Mr Smallwood's love for the Somerset & Dorset Railway line, the collection will be sold at the private Gartell Light Railway at Yenston, Templecombe, which is itself on the site of the much-loved S & D line.

The vast hoard of signs, signal finials, whistles, lamps, photographs and posters includes a carved door for the Great Western Railway Royal Train of 1897. Its glass window is decorated with an incised design of roses and thistles and shamrocks. Although the door has had several coats of paint in the past, it could be stripped back to its original mahogany.

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