R.U.C. Station

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey hipped roof building with symmetrical front. Main entrance faces east.

East elevation: roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses; three chimneys, one to each gable and one central on ridge. Oversailing eaves with tongued and grooved soffits. Gutters, returning to side elevations, look like PVC. Walls of roughcast, wet dash render using crushed stones; slightly projecting smooth cement rendered plinth; moulded projecting smooth cement string course to first floor level. Chimneys rendered as walls, with projecting block cornice.

Triple arched single storey breakfront to ground floor: contains twin doorways either side of central window. Doorways rectangular set in semi-circular arched recess with blind tympanum panel, all roughcast, with smooth cement rendered springing blocks continuing as string course to link with central archway. Door to left, rectangular 6-panel, raised and fielded, varnished hardwood, looks like replacement, with original brass handle; concrete step; original tapering rectangular lamp projecting above. Door to right, rectangular flush timber, modern; concrete doorstep. Three windows to first floor, rectangular timber sliding sash, vertically hung, 6 over 6, with horns, set in roughcast reveals; heads flush with eaves soffit, cills formed by string course. Three windows to ground floor, all altered, including two original openings now partly blocked up.

South and north elevations similar in form, with hipped roof returning around front face of central chimney stack to either side; swept haunches to chimneys. First floor windows original timber sashes but alterations to ground floor windows.

Rear elevation of similar character to front but without breakfront; all windows original timber sashed except small timber fixed light of former cell; attached to rear wall is an original iron handled water pump on timber post, no longer functioning.

SETTING: The building stands facing the main road, slightly set back on an elevated site, and partly hidden by a modern protective screen. Lawn to front, with boundaries formed by modern security fencing. Detached later garage and single storey block, of no architectural interest, standing to the rear.

Historical information

Built in 1930 to a standard design drawn up in the 1920s by T.F.O. Rippingham under the direction of R.I. Smith, Chief Architect to the Northern Ireland Office of Works.

References - Primary Sources
1. Ministry of Finance files held in MBR, Hill Street, Belfast (includes a site plan of 1929; amended 1930).

Secondary Sources
1. H. Dixon, An Introduction to Ulster Architecture (UAHS, Belfast, 1975), p 80 (refers to Rippingham as the author of the series of police station designs and illustrates an example).
2. C.E.B. Brett, Buildings of County Antrim (UAHS, Belfast, 1996), p 271 (illustrates a parallel example of the type, at Bushmills in Co Antrim, in its original state before later alterations and additions).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is an example of an inter-war police station in a neo-Georgian style designed by an important Ulster architect of the period, but its original appearance has been spoiled by later alterations.