28 Ballypalady Road, Doagh, Co Antrim, BT39 0QY

This detached single-bay two-storey Victorian house stands in a rural setting to the south of Doagh, on the north side of Ballypalady Road. Built in 1857, it was originally constructed as a Station Master's House by the Marquis of Donegall as part of the development of the Belfast to Londonderry railway and the Narrow Gauge railway to Doagh. The building is first recorded on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1857, marked as 'Watchhouse', and the 1859 Griffith's Valuation records it as a 'Clerk's and Station House' valued at £12 and owned by the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway Board. The house was built on 22 acres of land; Upper Doagh Station and associated workers cottages were originally located to the north of the railway line, with Lower Doagh station in the village itself.

The house is rectangular on plan with a single-storey return to the west and an extension to the east, added circa 1914. The original structure was unusually constructed with brick cavity walls for its period, while the eastern extension has solid brick walling. Pitched roofs are covered with artificial slates with clay ridge tiles, deep overhanging eaves supported on brick corbels, and timber bargeboards. Two corbelled chimneys with original clay pots rise from red brick to the east and roughcast to the west.

The walls are roughcast over a plinth. Windows are square-headed timber casements set within segmental-headed openings with painted masonry cills. The principal elevation faces south and is gabled, comprising a single window to each floor, with the first-floor window diminished in size. A porch with catslide roof on the left contains a modern timber panelled and glazed square-headed door in a segmental-headed opening. To the left, a modern uPVC conservatory on a roughcast plinth abuts the return to the rear. To the right is an extension containing a single window. The west elevation is abutted by a return containing a rectangular timber casement window and conservatory; the exposed section of wall contains a small first-floor window and a projecting flue. A porch to the right contains a single small window. The north elevation contains a single window to each floor and a square-headed stairwell window to the right at ground floor, with a blank extension to the left. The return at right contains a single window to the left and a small window to the right with fixed glazing. The east elevation is abutted by a single-storey extension containing a single window; the exposed section of wall is blank with a projecting flue.

Rainwater goods consist of cast-iron half-round gutters with round downpipes, replaced with uPVC to the return and extension.

The house is set within a mature garden bounded from the railway to the north by planting and timber fence, and to Ballypalady Road by hedge. To the west, original access steps to the railway station are enclosed by brick walling with saddle-back coping. A single-storey roughcast garage with corrugated metal roof stands to the east. The entrance to the south-east is through roughcast pillars abutted by curved walling to the garden.

The original character of the house has been somewhat diminished by the rendering of the facade and replacement of windows. Although the building retains its original form and layout, and access to the railway at its west, these extensive alterations have reduced its architectural and historic interest.