5 Millisle Road, Donaghadee, Co. Down, BT21 0HY

Former Police Station, 5 Millisle Road, Donaghadee

This is a detached, seven-bay, two-storey former police barracks built around 1939 to a standardised design by T. F. O. Rippingham, architect to the Ministry of Finance for Northern Ireland. It sits on the south-western side of Millisle Road on the south-eastern outskirts of Donaghadee, within the town's Conservation Area, to which it makes a positive contribution to the streetscape despite a number of later alterations that have diminished its architectural character.

Rippingham was a London-born architect who moved to Belfast in 1922, initially working as assistant architect to the newly formed Government of Northern Ireland Works Division before succeeding C. S. Agnew as chief architect in the mid-1940s, a post he held until retirement in 1956. Following the partition of Ireland, he was commissioned by the Ministry of Finance to design a series of Royal Ulster Constabulary stations, producing a basic design that was then scaled to suit individual sites, ranging from three windows wide to nine. The style drew deliberately on earlier Ulster building traditions: the hipped roof and tall end-wall chimneys echo early 18th-century precedents, while the arched recessed openings to the front entrance and flanking windows reflect the refined proportions of the late Georgian and Regency periods. The scheme is notable as an early example of modular building. Rippingham also designed Stranmillis College in 1929, in conjunction with R. Ingleby-Smith, also for the Ministry of Finance. Further surviving examples of his RUC stations can be found at Seaforde in County Down and Belleek in County Fermanagh.

The site previously formed part of the garden of G. L. Delacherois, which had a rateable value of £3. The barracks first appears on the fifth-edition Ordnance Survey map of 1939, captioned "RUC Barracks", and was added to the Annual Revision records in 1940, with the Ministry of Home Affairs for Northern Ireland repaying George L. Delacherois, who remained in ownership of the site. Before this building was constructed, RUC (formerly Royal Irish Constabulary) barracks in Donaghadee had been located at No. 4 Shore Street during the First World War, and at the Bridewell on High Street at the turn of the 20th century. The Donaghadee station included separate quarters for married officers — a feature provided at a number of stations within the series — and the separation between the main barracks and the constable's quarters to the northern portion of the building has been largely maintained. The station operated as an RUC station until 2001, when the Police Service of Northern Ireland was established. It was subsequently closed in October 2012 under a government estate strategy implemented in 2005. A 3-metre-high palisade fence and entrance gate were erected around 2014. The building was vacant and for sale at the time of listing. Contemporary Ordnance Survey maps confirm that the footprint of the main building has remained largely unchanged since construction, though a gabled porch has been added to the main entrance bay and extensions made to the rear.

The building is rectangular on plan with three single-storey flat-roofed extensions abutting the rear, and a linear range of outbuildings lining the western side of the rear yard. The roof is hipped with mitred hips, clad in natural slate, and carries rendered chimneystacks with painted concrete coping and red clay pots — mostly replacements. The chimneystacks to the north and south are connected by gablets to the main roof. A pair of Velux windows is set into the rear pitch. Eaves overhang with timber-sheeted soffits beneath a moulded eaves cornice, terminating at the central bay of the north and south elevations where they flank the recessed chimneystacks. Rainwater goods are largely uPVC, though a cast-iron downpipe and hopper survive at the north end of the rear elevation.

External walls are painted roughcast render over a projecting smooth rendered and painted plinth, with a continuous moulded sill course running at first-floor level. Window openings are largely square-headed, with projecting painted masonry sills to the ground floor; first-floor openings extend up to the eaves cornice. All windows are uPVC casements. Door openings are square-headed, with largely modern flush timber doors throughout.

The principal elevation faces east and comprises seven equally spaced openings on the first floor and six irregularly spaced openings on the ground floor. There is a shallow breakfront to the three left-hand bays at ground-floor level, where the outer two openings are set within shallow round-arched recesses and linked by a continuous painted masonry blocking course at impost level. This is interrupted by a later gable-fronted single-storey porch addition with a fibre-cement tiled roof, a single window with a painted concrete sill to the east elevation, and the main entrance door in the left cheek. The south elevation has three window openings to the ground floor only. The rear, west-facing elevation contains seven bays to the first floor; four remain visible at ground-floor level, with the remainder obscured by the three single-storey flat-roofed extensions. These extensions have painted concrete sills and plainly detailed flush timber doors; the left-of-centre extension has a parapet with painted concrete coping. Single-storey walls — with painted masonry coping — abut the outer sides of the main building, enclosing the rear yard; the former gate to the right side has been removed, and the opening to the left side has a modern flush timber door. The north elevation has a single window opening to the right of centre at first-floor level, above a square-headed door opening that formerly gave separate access to the self-contained constable's quarters. This door has a moulded architrave, is set within a shallow round-arched recess with a continuous painted masonry blocking course at impost level, and retains a timber-panelled door.

The linear range of single-storey flat-roofed outbuildings in the rear yard faces east and has square-headed plainly detailed openings with uPVC windows, painted masonry sills, and modern timber doors. Openings are concentrated on the eastern elevation, with two window openings also present on the right side of the western elevation. To the west of the site, a steel fence encloses a communications mast and a single-storey outbuilding with a pitched fibre-cement tiled roof; this outbuilding has no openings other than a square-headed opening to the south, concealed behind a steel roller shutter. A single-storey flat-roofed red brick outbuilding occupies the south-western corner of the site, with walls laid to English garden wall bond, a concrete coping to the parapet, and two door openings with modern flush timber doors.

The building is set back from the road behind a painted and rendered dwarf boundary wall running along Millisle Road, with a shallow angled coping and ramped intervals. Two pedestrian entrances and a vehicular entrance are flanked by square-plan painted rendered piers with pyramidal coping; the piers at the north end are of cast iron, though heavily eroded, with largely modern steel gates. The rear yard is partially enclosed by the range of outbuildings to the west; former gates to the south side have been removed. The site is bounded by historic rubblestone walls to the south and west, with a modern palisade fence enclosing the perimeter. A small garden lies to the front (east), with largely tarmac hardstandings and concrete steps or ramps providing access to most door openings.

Although this building represents the work of a significant architect and is an early example of modular design, the loss of original detailing through incremental alterations and the insertion of modern materials and fabric has diminished its character to the extent that it is not considered to be of special architectural or historic interest.