Former Railway freight store, off Saintfield Road, Ballygowan, Co. Down, BT23 6HB

This is a single-storey, rubble-built railway freight store dating to c.1898 and located off Saintfield Road, Ballygowan, Co. Down. Originally part of the station complex on the Belfast and Co. Down Railway, which opened in 1859, the store is rectangular in plan. It features a coursed rubble facade with granite quoins and dressings, and a Bangor blue slated gabled roof. Originally, each gable was pierced by a large semicircular arched doorway designed to accommodate engines, but these are now filled with modern doors and windows. Two other arched openings on the south-east facade are now completely blocked. The railway track was lifted in 1950, and the surrounding ground is now surfaced with tarmac. The building is now used for storing gardening equipment. It represents the last recognisable former railway building in Ballygowan, and possesses industrial archaeological interest. Sources consulted included Ordnance Survey maps from 1858-60 and 1973, William A. McCutcheon’s ‘The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland’ (1980), and Desmond Coakham’s ‘Belfast & County Down Railway’ (1998).