Signal Box

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

This signal box is located at the W end of the island platform of Lisburn Station. It is one-and-a-half storey building, aligned E-W and originally with signal levers on the upper floor and linking rods/wires in the basal section.
Pitched natural slate roof with projecting plain bargeboards, boxed eaves and half-round metal rainwater goods. Painted brick base surmounted by horizontally-sheeted timber-framed cabin with timber-framed windows (with timber cills) to all elevations. An external metal ladder rises to the semi-glazed timber entrance door to the cabin on the E gable. Small returns with catslide roofs project from the W end of the S elevation and E end of the N elevation.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Boarded timber frame over brick
Windows: Timber
RWG: Metal

Historical information

This signal box first appears at this location on the 1920 OS map. Prior to that, there was a cabin at the W end of the main platform. The new box must therefore date from the first two decades of the 1900s and was constructed by the Great Northern Railway (Ireland).
With the development of electronic signalling, the box became superfluous to requirements. Its equipment was removed and the upper floor is now used as a rest room by Translink’s permanent way staff.

Sources – Primary
references:
1. PRONI OS/8/16/3A/5 Lisburn town map (1900).
2. PRONI OS/10/1/68/2/2 Second edition OS 25-inch map Co Antrim sheet 68-02 (1920).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This GNR(I) signal cabin of c.1910 is recognisable by its architectural style and simple floor arrangement. Constructed as a timber cabin over a substantial brick base, It differs from the more usual two-storey structures. Its location at the W end of the station complex allowed it to command trains entering and leaving the station on either the main or secondary lines. Despite the removal of the signal control equipment, the cabin is of interest as an early 20th century railway structure and has group value with the other important buildings and structures within the station complex (HB19/15/003A) and (HB19/15/003C).

General comments

Criteria R,S and T also apply.