46 Molesworth Street, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8PA

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

This is a detached two-storey red brick, former station house, built c. 1910. The property is now in use as an office. Located adjacent to the former LMS railway terminus, the building forms part of a series of railway buildings, as part of the line between Randalstown and Cookstown.

The building is roughly rectangular in plan, with a c.1990 two-storey extension to rear. Single-storey porch projection to the centre of the front elevation. Flemish bond brick to external walls.

The South elevation is street fronted. It is slightly asymmetrical and has segmental headed 4/4 sliding timber sash windows openings to the ground floor, and 2/2 to the upper floor. All windows have contrasting black brick voussoirs with a continuous dark brick string course at window head level to both ground and first floor. There are cut-stone sills to all windows.
The single storey entrance porch is gable ended with windows as previous. The segmental headed doorway to West elevation of porch has a painted timber sheeted door. Door is set on a ceramic tiled step with a low cut stone wall. There is a small modern sign to the top right of door.

The West and East elevation contain four segmental-headed windows as before. The West elevation is gable-ended.

The rear North elevation has two window openings to ground level, having a 2/4 timber sash window to right and an artificial infill panel depicting a window to the left.

There is a chamfered brick plinth to base of all elevations. There are double pitched artificial slate roofs to the front elevation, and a single pitched to the return. There are painted exposed timber fascias throughout. There are cast-iron rainwater goods to the front elevation, and uPVC to the rear.

Extension:
The East elevation of the rear extension has matching segmental-headed windows. The West elevation has an integral window and door to ground level with 2/2 timber sash frames and a glazed panelled door with overlight. Openings on this façade are flat-headed and window frames are uPVC.

Setting:
This former station house is street-fronted with continuous level access directly onto the street. Pedestrian access to a rear gravelled yard is via a path with low brick wall and painted cast iron railings. Simple profiled brick pillars with cast-iron gates and pyramidal stone caps provide access to a short driveway to the rear of the building.

Historical information

The station
This building originally served as the Cookstown station for the Belfast & Ballymena Railway Company’s line from Randalstown to Cookstown, and was built in 1855-56. The engineering architect was Charles Lanyon, the contractor, William Dargan, and the line opened on 10th November 1856.

The Belfast & Ballymena Railway Company became the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway in 1860, which, in 1903, was taken over by the Midland Railway, becoming the Northern Counties Committee (NCC). Following UK-wide amalgamations in 1923, the NCC be came part of the London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS). With Nationalisation in 1948, the line passed to the British Transport Commission, and the following year, was sold to the Ulster Transport Authority (UTA), finally closing in August 1950. The station building appears remained in the ownership of the UTA and its successor Northern Ireland Railways throughout the 1950s and 60s, and may have served as a store for a time, but when surveyed in October 1970 had become ‘semi-derelict’. It appears to have remained unused until 1977, when, after being sold to a private owner, it was converted to a motor accessories store. By 1983 it had become a farm supplies shop, remaining as such until at least 1989. It was converted to a restaurant at some point after 2002.

McCutcheon tells us that all of the original Belfast & Ballymena Railway Company’s stations ‘were built on similar lines – long single-storey blocks with coupled round-headed, horizontally-glazed windows, squared random rubble, dressed window openings, and ornamental, stucco quoins. At Cookstown, where the central station stood alongside the contrasting Great Northern station of 1878-9, the derelict terminus of the first branch line to be built on what later became the Northern Counties system is particularly impressive. It has a six-bay street front flanking a projecting central entrance, each bay with coupled round-headed windows, horizontally glazed, squared random snecked rubble and dressed window openings and impost course. The porched entrance has oversailing eaves and there is a single, elegant Italianate chimney. The platform behind looked across a single track to a plain-arched colonnade of squared random rubble pillars supporting a canopy, the whole forming a “little house into which the train drew up”. At Cookstown the masonry is uncovered: at the other stations it is clad in painted stucco, the main constructional details often picked out in different colours.’

The stationmaster’s house and other structures
The red brick building now used as offices (HB09/13/030) originally served as the stationmaster’s house for the Cookstown terminus of the Belfast & Ballymena Railway Company’s line from Randalstown. This line opened in 1855-56, but, according to the valuations, this building was only added to the site in 1883. The line closed in 1950, and in 1956 an R. McKee is recorded as the occupant of the house, remaining there up until at least 1972.

The brick building to the West of the former stationmaster’s house was constructed some time between 1895 and 1897. Its original function is uncertain, but it is likely to have acted as an outbuilding for the neighbouring stationmaster’s house itself. The valuers give no specific details as to the individual roles of the various structures within railway complexes such as this, however, the buildings belonging to the railway are listed in the valuation of 1916, (when the extent of the station was at its height), as consisting of a ‘Passenger station house, goods office and stores, lavatory and lamp room, advertising spaces, sites of oil tank and automatic machines, platforms, roofs and approaches’ as well as ‘sidings’ are also recorded as well as the ‘station master’s house, offices and yard’.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/2C/63 Second valuation, Union of Cookstown (Dublin, 1859) [This is the printed version of the second valuation. The handwritten version (which may have been more detailed and include property dimensions etc.) no longer exists. The printed volume merely provides names of tenants and leaseholders, and rateable values.]
2 PRONI VAL/2D/6/3/1-2 Valuation plan of Cookstown, 1859-82 [2 sheets]
3 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5A Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1860-63
4 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5B Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1864-68
5 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5C Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1868-81
6 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5D Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1881
7 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5E Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1881
8 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5F Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1882-90
9 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5G Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1882-88
10 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5J Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1889-94 [The reference number for this book is out of sequence in the
PRONI catalogue- the dates it covers are actually earlier than VAL/12B/37/5H.]
11 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5H Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1895-99
12 PRONI VAL/12B/37/5K Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1889-99
13 PRONI VAL/12E/171/1/1-2 Valuation plan of Cookstown, 1892-97 [2 sheets]
14 PRONI OS/33/1/1-5 OS plan of Cookstown, 1895 [5 sheets]
15 PRONI OS/9/10/2/1-2 OS plan of Cookstown, index map, 1895 [2 sheets]
16 PRONI OS/9/10/3/1-5 OS plan of Cookstown, 1895 [5 sheets]
17 PRONI VAL/12E/171/2/1-3 Valuation plan of Cookstown, 1897-1910 [3 sheets]
18 PRONI VAL/12B/37/7A Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1901-07
19 PRONI VAL/12B/37/7B Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1909-15
20 PRONI OS/33/2/1-4 OS plan, 1909 & 1918 [4 sheets]
21 PRONI VAL/12B/37/7C Annual valuation revision book, Cookstown ED, 1916-29
22 PRONI VAL/3G/142/1 /1-4 Valuation plan of Cookstown, 1936-37 [4 sheets]
23 PRONI VAL/3C/7/8 First general revaluation of Northern Ireland, Cookstown Urban, 1936-57
24 PRONI VAL/3G/142/2/1-4 Valuation plan of Cookstown, 1937-51
25 PRONI VAL/4B/6/10 Second general revaluation of Northern Ireland, Cookstown Urban vol.1, 1956-72
26 PRONI VAL/4B/6/11 Second general revaluation of Northern Ireland, Cookstown Urban vol.2E, 1956-72

Secondary sources
1 McCutcheon, W.A., 'The industrial archaeology of Northern Ireland' (Belfast, HMSO, 1980), pp.172-3
2 Johnson, Stephen, ‘Johnson’s atlas & gazetteer of the railways of Ireland’, (Midland Publishing Ltd., 1997), p.103

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Former station house from 1883 , this building is another interesting component to the railway history of Cookstown. The building is well proportioned with simple and attractive detailing to the brickwork.
This shares a group value with the other railway related structures but is not as well detailed nor as original in appearance both externally and internally.