Former Goods Shed, Moleworth Street, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Description at 30.07.2008
The description at this date is as below except that the projecting canopy on the South side has been removed.

Description at 09.11.2007.
Detached former railway ‘Goods Shed’, built c.1870, now in use as a council storage warehouse. It is long and rectangular in plan with a single-storey extension to the front West elevation. The building is set within a large tarmaced and gated yard. It forms part of a series of railway buildings, all part of the Great Northern Railway (GNR). The entrance to the yard is framed by a semi-circular headed iron arch; this has been slightly relocated and rests on new gate pillars.

The front West elevation is gable ended. It has a large square-headed door opening to the centre with a replacement metal door.

The side North elevation has an assortment of segmental-headed window and door openings. There are clay brick surrounds to some openings. Many of the openings have been boarded up. There are cut-stone steps leading to a doorway with wrought-iron railings. The doorway is blocked up.

The side South elevation is largely blank with blocked up openings.
There are no openings to the rear East elevation. There is a low-rise wall abutting the rear elevation supporting a raised timber water tank. There is a high-rise boundary wall abutting the rear elevation.

The double pitched roof is covered with corrugated sheeting and has a stepped lantern on the ridge. There are projecting canopies to both sides over the now blocked up openings for loading.
External walls are squared sandstone. The ‘tympanum’ of the gable-ends has face-fixed timber boarding.

Extension:
The single-storey extension has segmental-headed window openings with 2/4 timber timber sash frames. Windows are set on cut-stone sills. Some windows have been boarded up. There is a segmental-headed doorway to the West elevation with a timber panelled door. There are cut-stone steps leading to the doorway with wrought-iron railings.

Setting:
The former goods shed is set back from Molesworth Street within a large open yard. To the South there is a distinctive double-riveted wrought-iron arched gateway, set on replacement tall rock-faced pillars, with boundary walls having cut-stone capping. The archway contains painted wrought-iron lettering depicting 'GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY'. The goods shed still has its original relationship with the listed GNR railwat station on Molesworth Street.

Historical information

Goods shed and gateway
These structures were originally part of a railway station complex, serving the GNR line between Cookstown and Dungannon. The line was built between 1874 and 1879, with much of the work carried out after 1876, and the line finally opening in July 1879. The goods shed is marked as an annotation to the 1857 OS map (where it is marked ‘goods store’) and the 1859-82 valuation plan, so it is likely that it is pre-1882 and as such probably part of the original late 1870s complex. Unfortunately the valuation books contain little information on the individual buildings within railway stations, the 1916 valuation, for instance, merely listing a ‘passenger station house, platform roofs and sheds, store and weigh house’.

The date of the gateway is uncertain….

The station closed to passengers in January 1956 and ceased operations completely in January 1959. The lease of all or most of the site was acquired by Cookstown Urban District Council in the late 1960s…

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), p.164
2 Johnson, Stephen, ‘Johnson’s atlas & gazetteer of the railways of Ireland’, (Midland Publishing Ltd., 1997), p.99

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
Z. Rarity
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

Intact and increasingly rare example of a railway goods shed. This well proportioned and detailed goods shed has special architectural character in its own right along with the iconic iron arch and has group value with the nearby listed GNR railway station. The grouip value is further reinforced by the proximity to the other listed railway terminus on Molesworth street. It forms a key piece of the transport heritage of Cookstown.