Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB18/15/005

Address :
Tower at former railway station, Railway Street, Newcastle, Co. Down BT33 OAL

Townland:
Newcastle

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Survey 2:
B1

Date of Listing:
11/07/1977 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Tower

Former Use
Railway Station Structures

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
Yes

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
255/11 NE

IG Ref:
J3786 3161

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Owner Category

Commercial

Exterior Description And Setting

Unusual, broad, three storey brick-built tower with turrets and spire, the slightly disproportionate centrepiece of a former railway station built in 1905. The former station is situated on the N side of Railway Street, to the N of Newcastle town centre. The tower is relatively broad and is sandwiched between two single storey wings to E and W also largely in red brick. At ground floor level on the S face of the tower there is a central semicircular arched recess with double timber-sheeted doors therein with a now boarded semicircular fanlight. To either side of the doorway arch there is a minuscule decorative moulded brick springing course which continues around the E and W faces of the tower. There used to be arched window openings to each side of the doorway as well as doorways to the E and W faces of the tower, but these have all been skilfully blocked using a similar brick as the façade, except for the doorway to the W face. The stone steps of the former doorway to the E is still visible. At second floor level there is a clock to each face of the tower, fringed with moulded brick in roundel-like manner. The tower has a castellated parapet with corner turrets, bartizan-like but with copper covered spire roofs with finials. There is a projecting moulded brick course just below the castellations. The castellations themselves have granite coping and there is a course of granite beneath the spire roofs of the turrets. The tower is topped with an octagonal spire, copper covered with a weather-vane finial. The E and W wings flanking the tower are single storey with gabled roofs. Each culminates in an outer gabled bay, with the bay on that to the E set at an angle. Both wings have large returns to the N. The front facades of both wings have been greatly altered in recent times, with that to the E now rendered and with large picture windows, and that to the left with a large flat arched doorway inserted with an original arch headed window obliterated in the process. Two original windows survive to the right of the large doorway, but a third window has been blocked up and is now merely a recess. Both facades also have modern shop and public house signage attached, however the gables of the outer bays have retained their original semicircular arch headed windows (two to each bay) and shaped barge boards with finials. The E and W wings have retained natural slate and clay ridge tiles to their gabled roofs as well as their original brick chimney stacks. The returns to the N also appear to have retained their original openings. The rear portion to the station between the returns, however, has been greatly extended recently with the addition of a large single storey section with a shallow, gabled corrugated iron roof. The hipped roof of the original rear portion is also covered in corrugated iron. The area around the former station is now covered in tarmac and serves as a car park. Historically there was a large cast iron port cochere, with a glazed hipped roof, to the front of this former railway station. This may have been removed when the station closed in 1950.

Architects

Morris, W H

Historical Information

This station was built by the Belfast & Co. Down Railway in 1905, probably to designs W.H. Morris the BCDR’s Chief Assistant Engineer. It replaced an earlier station which had been built slightly to the north by the Downpatrick, Dundrum & Newcastle Railway, when the line to Newcastle was completed in 1869. The line closed in 1950 and since that time the building has served, firstly, as a bus station and then (c.1979) a shopping centre, with the east wing converted to a public house some time prior to the mid 1970s. References- Primary sources 1 UFTM W.A. Green Collection WAG 3484 Photograph of Newcastle railway station c.1920. Secondary sources 1 P.J. Rankin, ‘Historic Buildings, Groups of Buildings, Areas of Architectural Importance in the Mourne Area of South Down’, (Belfast UAHS 1975), p.76. 2 W.A. McCutcheon, ‘The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland’ (HMSO 1980), pp.176-77. 3 Alastair Coey, Richard Oram & Richard Pierce, ‘Taken For Granted, A Celebration of 10 years of Historic Buildings Conservation’ (Belfast RSUA & HBC 1984), p.178. 4 Fred Hammond and Tom Porter, ‘Tour of the Mournes’ (Belfast 1991). 5 Desmond Coakham, ‘Belfast & County Down Railway’ (Leicester 1998), pp.56-59.

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style

Historic Interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Square red brick tower with octagonal spire, castellations and bartizan-like corner turrets, built as the entrance centrepiece of a railway station by 1905, but possessing a ‘toytown’-like appearance and out of proportion with the rest of the building. Two windows and a doorway to the base of the tower have been blocked using a similar red brick as the rest of the tower façade, but otherwise the structure is intact. The remainder of the former station, which consists mainly of two gabled wings to each side of the tower has been converted to a shopping centre and public house and there have been considerable alterations to the façade in the process. A large modern extension has been added to the rear also.

General Comments

Date of Survey

05 May 1999