Former Station Master’s House,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

This former station master’s house of c.1882 is situated adjacent to Balmoral Station at the junction of Stockman’s Lane and a minor road to Musgrave Park Hospital. It is slightly below the level of the station, but elevated relative to the road. It has a landscaped garden around and is accessed by a gated driveway from SW. A brick wall and timber fence separate its garden from the footpath leading up to the station’s down line (Belfast direction).
This two-storey, three-bay building is aligned NE-SW. It has a pitched artificial slate roof with a skylight to its NW pitch, projecting bargeboards (with decorative A frame to the NE gable), oversailing eaves (with circular embellishments along their bottom edges) and half-round gutters (uncertain if plastic or metal). There is a low brick chimney on each gable apex, each with two octagonal yellow chimney stacks.
The walls are of red brick embellished with yellow brick on the quoins, FF platband around the building at window cill level, and on all the heads to the openings.
The principal elevation faces SE and is symmetrical. At GF centre is a four-panel painted timber door with semicircular overlight. It is flanked to both sides by a two-over-two timber sliding sash window with segmental head and painted cill. At FF level, directly above the door, is a one-over-one sash window with semicircular head set in an eaves gablet.
The SW gable is now abutted by a two-storey link block to a modern extension (see below). There is a window to its FF and undoubtedly a through doorway on the ground floor (not visible).
The NW elevation has a two-over-two sash window at each end of the GF and two small one-over-one windows to middle. Above the latter, at intermediate level (probably a staircase landing) is a two-over-two sash.
The NE gable has a two-over-two sash window to FF. The GF was not observable.
A link block (timber sheeted to GF and glazed to FF) connects the building with a modern two-storey extension aligned at 90 degrees. It has a pitched profiled metal roof, plastic rainwater goods, plain cement-rendered walls and square-headed opes with uPVC fittings.

Materials:

Roof: Artificial slate
Walling: Brick
Windows: 2/2 sliding timber sash
RWG: Unknown

Historical information

Balmoral Station was opened in 1858 by the Ulster Railway Co (although not shown on the OS six-inch map of that year). It lies on the Belfast-Lisburn line which opened in 1839 and was completed to Dublin in the 1850s.
An early reference to it is in an advertisement in the Belfast Newsletter of 22nd October 1858 noting the sale of animals and agricultural produce at Meadowlands “adjacent to the Balmoral Station of the Ulster Railway”. On 23 June 1860, a fare dodger is also recorded in the same newspaper as being apprehended at this station.
Balmoral and other stations on the line such as Windsor and Dunmurry were catalysts in the development of Belfast’s southern suburbs well before the advent of Belfast Corporation’s horse-drawn tram and trolley bus services. From the early 1860s onwards, building speculators advertising in the Belfast Newsletter make frequent
references of the proximity of their developments to it.
Any buildings associated with the 1850s’ station seem to have been fairly rudimentary (probably wood) as they are not recorded in the valuation books of that period. During its early life, the station might therefore be more accurately described as a halt.
The first reference to permanent buildings is in a valuation revision book entry of 1882 which notes the Great Northern Railway (GNR) as owning ‘Balmoral Railway Station and Station Master’s House”. Its rateable valuation is given as £30.
The GNR was formed in 1876 by the amalgamation of the Ulster Railway Co and the Northern Railway Co (Ireland). William Henry Mills was its Engineer-in-Chief and responsible for a major overhaul of its entire infrastructure. In 1903, he published a list of his works up to then, including those at Balmoral: (1) a new station building (one of 41 which he built), (2) a station master’s house “of large size” (one of 29), (3) a new signal cabin, and (4) a new railway bridge over Stockman’s Lane.
The 1887 street directory notes William Wallace as its Station Master. He had been succeeded by R. Robinson by the mid-1890s.
The 1895 OS 5ft map depicts the station master’s house aligned NE-SW, with the station building lying parallel to it nearby on the down line. All subsequent maps of the recent past show a similar footprint for both buildings.
The site’s valuation increases from £30 to £54 in 1897. As the OS maps show no change in the buildings’ footprints, this increase may perhaps be due to the fact that this portion of Malone Upper townland was transferred from the Borough of Lisburn to Belfast.
The 1911 valuation notes the complex as comprising the station master’s house, station building (with booking office and waiting rooms), platforms, signal cabins and apparatus, approaches and fencing.
The opening of the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society’s showgrounds at Balmoral in 1896 also stimulated traffic and sidings were constructed on the up line on the other side of the bridge. By the early 1900s, there were up to ten trains a day on the Belfast-Lisburn section of the line. Because of the high volume of commuter traffic, the GNR added a third line to the existing two tracks in 1907-08. However, it only reached Balmoral and was not progressed towards Lisburn even though a triple-arch road bridge had been erected at Finaghy to accommodate it.
No photographs of the station master’s house were found during this research, but two depicting the station building show a single-storey brick building embellished with a yellow-brick platband. There are currently no remains of the station building evident on the site.
In later years, the station master’s house was used by the Superintendent of the Adelaide Goods Yards, several hundred yards along the line in the Belfast direction. Operation of the line was eventually taken over by the Ulster Transport Authority and the station eventually became unmanned and part of Translink’s network. The station master’s house was sold off and is now in private hands. In the relatively recent past, a large modern two-storey extension has been added to its SW end.

References – Primary Sources:
1. PRONI OS/6/1/64/2. Second edition OS 1:10,560 map, Co Antrim sheet 64 (1858).
1. Belfast Newsletter, 22 Oct, 1858.
2. Belfast Newsletter, 23 June 1860.
3. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/15C. 1877-84 Valuation Revision Book for Malone Upper townland/ Shankill Parish/ Lisburn Union, p.60. 1882 entry for plot 1Bb.
4. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/15D. 1885-92 Valuation Revision Book, p.60.
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/15E. 1892-97 Valuation Revision Book, p.76.
6. PRONI OS/8/30/4/64. OS 1:1056 map, Belfast sheet 64 (1895).
7. VAL/7/A/84/1. As 1895 map but with valuation data overlaid (Balmoral Station is plot 2B).
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/C/31A. 1897-1905 Valuation Revision Book, p.160.
9. 1887 Belfast & Provincial Street Direction, p. 349.
10. 1895 Belfast & Provincial Street Direction, p. 352.
11. PRONI OS/6/1/64/3. Third edition OS 1:10,560 map, Co Antrim sheet 64 (1901).
12. W.H. Mills, List of some of the principal new works carried out on the GNR(I) between 1st Jan 1877 and 30th June 1903 (Dublin: Thom, 1903).
13. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/C/35. 1906-14 Valuation Revision Book, p.839. Entry for 1911.
14. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/C/39. 1913-25 Valuation Revision Book, p.912.
15. PRONI OS/6/1/64/4 Fourth edition OS 1:10,560 map, Co Antrim sheet 64 (1920-21).
16. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/C/44 1924-30 Valuation Revision Book, p.1024.
17. PRONI OS/6/1/64/5. Fifth edition OS 1:10,560 map, Co Antrim sheet 64 (1931).
18. PRONI VAL/11/16. Valuation Office file dated 1932 relating to Balmoral Station (missing and therefore not consulted, but included here for completeness).
19. PRONI OS/6/1/64/6. Sixth edition OS 1:10,560 map, Co Antrim sheet 64 (1938-39).

References – Secondary Sources:
1. McCutcheon A., Irish Railway History in Pictures – Ireland vol.2, p.59 (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1970).
2. Johnson S. (1997). Johnson’s Atlas & Gazetteer of Railways of Ireland (Leicester: Midland Press).
3. Sinclair I. McL., Along UTA Lines: Ulster’s Rail Network in the 1960s, pp 14-15 (Colourpoint: Newtownards, 2002).
4. Patterson E.M., The Great Northern Railway (Ireland), pp 101 and 190 (Usk: Oakwood Press, 2003).
5. Additional information from Charles Friel, Railway Preservation Society of Ireland.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This former station master’s house of c.1882 is typical of the architecture of the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) at this time, and of its Engineer-in-Chief, W.H. Mills. The uniformity of its red brickwork is enlivened by the use of contrasting yellow brickwork on the quoins, platband and ope heads. The building is identical in style to the station master’s house at Lisburn, another of Mills’ work (HB19/15/004). The original roof has been replaced and a modern extension added. Although of interest, there are better examples listed.