A station which became a chapel can now officially call itself a museum as well.

Volunteers who look after St Seraphim's, at Walsingham, have spent two years working towards obtaining museum accreditation from the Arts Council of Great Britain.

Lauren Ephithite, assistant curator at Gressenhall Museum, who acted as a museum mentor for St Seraphim's, said: 'It means Seraphim's has reached national standards in how it's run, how it looks after its collections and how it makes them accessible.

'It's a unique building with a unique story and a unique collection.'

Until 1964, St Seraphim's was Walsingham's station, with trains bringing pilgrims to its shrines. After the Beeching Axe fell, it became an Orthodox church and home to religious icon painters Father David and Leon Liddament.

Today, its collections embrace railway memorabilia and the icon painting which is central to the Orthodox faith.

Jonny Wood, from Volunteer Norfolk, who has helped at St Seraphim's since 2009, said: 'It's been a fascinating story of how to take a redundant industrial building and reinvent it. This building could have been rack and ruin now.'

Sylvia Bachelor, from the St Seraphim's Trust, said she wanted to thank volunteers Anne Milton, Luke Shackell, Daniel Laing, Jessica Knights, Jonny Wood, Bernadette Schmidt, Andrew Row, Philip Absolon, Lisa Aouichaoui, Rosemary and Alan Cooper, Kathryn Elliott, Ed Wilson, and Chris Allen, along with Miss Ephithite and regional museums development manager Jamie Everitt.

St Seraphim's chapel is open daily from 9am - 5pm and the railway exhibition is open every Wednesday, from 11am - 4pm.