HOPES of tracking down a railway clock, which once kept time at a small Herefordshire station, are steadily gathering steam.

Stationmaster at Lyonshall in the early 1900s, Jacob Amesbury Sage was a stickler for time.

He and his staff adhered to a strict timetable thanks to a grandfather clock in the first class waiting room, a second one in the stationmaster’s house and his impressive gold fob watch.

One of the clocks is treasured by Jacob’s descendant, his great grandson Richard Morgan, though the family would love to find out what happened to its twin.

The clocks were distinctive, both with three gold finials bearing orbs and eagles, and though the cases were identical the hand-painted faces would have differed. The missing one may carry the name ‘William Latch, 37 High Street, Newport, Mon’.

“The family interest is purely historical and romantic,” points out historian and genealogist John Quinton-Adams who now lives in the converted station which closed to rail traffic in 1940.

“Jacob Amesbury Sage maintained the two clocks on railway standard time by means of his elaborate pocket watch.”

Guards on passing trains would synchronise watches with him, he explains.

“He would be the reference point for anyone wanting to know the exact UK time, like the Speaking Clock nowadays.”

Mr Morgan is very proud of his great-grandfather’s elevation to the post of Great Western Railway stationmaster. A coal-miner’s son, Jacob was posted to Symonds Yat before moving to Lyonshall in 1901 where he remained until his retirement at the age of 66 in 1915.

Lyonshall station was closed during the First World War, the tracks taken up and shipped to France, though it’s thought they were lost at sea following a German torpedo attack.

After the line reopened in 1922, three trains passed daily each way through Lyonshall until its final closure 18 years later.

n Anyone able to help Jacob Amesbury Sage’s family trace the second grandfather clock can contact Richard Morgan through Lyonshall History Project on 01544 340218.