The Station, Station Square, Helen's Bay, Bangor, Co Down, BT19 1TN

The Station

This single-storey building with basement was built around 1862 in Scottish baronial style and sits on the north side of the Belfast-Bangor railway, aligned east-west. It is a Grade A listed building of significant architectural importance.

The building has a pitched natural slate roof with raised and stepped gables topped with cut sandstone blocks. Three chimneys run along the ridge, each capped with moulded inward-tapering ashlar sandstone. The gutters are integral with the advanced moulded sandstone eaves course. The walls are constructed of quarried rock-faced blackstone, squared on the south elevation.

The principal south elevation faces the railway platform and comprises four bays. A three-arch colonnade formerly provided the main entrance, leading into a passage from which the internal rooms were accessed. The left and middle arches are round-headed; the right-hand arch is smaller with a two-centred head. All are trimmed in ashlar sandstone with a moulded intrados. These openings have since been infilled with windows on rendered dwarf walls. At the extreme left is a small lancet window trimmed in sandstone. The right-hand bay is slightly advanced and embellished with a crow-stepped gable containing a pair of lancet windows with shared chamfered cill, stepped sandstone jambs, and shouldered pedimented sandstone lintel. One window is a fixed pane, the other a 1/1 sliding sash, both with timber frames. In the apex of the gable is a square recessed panel trimmed in sandstone bearing the intertwined letters D and A (Dufferin and Ava) under a coronet, all in bas relief.

The east elevation faces Station Square and has a slightly advanced base course delineated by a chamfered sandstone top course. It contains a pair of window openings matching those on the south elevation and a pedestrian entrance with stone steps rising thereto. This opening has a semicircular head trimmed with ashlar sandstone and chamfered jambs. Vertical metal handrails flank each side of the steps, with an electric light above the doorway. A yard wall continues to the right of this elevation with two square gate pillars at the far end, constructed of quarried blackstone and delineated with a chamfered sandstone string course along its base and similar copings. The sandstone trim has been painted and continues around the gate pillars, which have projecting pyramidal sandstone caps.

The north elevation has an advanced base course similar to the east elevation. The left-hand bay is slightly advanced and detailed as the corresponding end of the platform side, complete with the Dufferin and Ava insignia on the gable apex. A later brick shed has been built across the remainder of this elevation, though inspection from the platform side suggests the original window openings probably survive intact. At the north-west corner is a two-stage circular tower with a natural slate conical spire, heavily overgrown with ivy. This served as the private entrance for the Dufferin family. The moulded cornice around the main building continues as a string course around the tower between ground and first floor stages, and the latter also has a moulded eaves course. The upper stage features a lancet window trimmed in sandstone. A doorway to the ground floor stage was accessed by a flight of stone steps from the courtyard below. The staircase was contained between quarried rubble blackstone walls coped with sandstone.

The west elevation is detailed as the east elevation but without the base course. The eaves cornice continues across the base of the gable apex, which lacks the D and A insignia. This elevation contains three lancet windows trimmed with sandstone. A fourth lancet window at the north end has been broken out to form a doorway. A modern lean-to structure in concrete blockwork now partially abuts this gable.

The building is located off Station Square in Helen's Bay, close to Clandeboye Avenue and north of the listed station platforms. The former station master's house is adjacent to the north, with the associated road bridge further north. The setting is bounded by tall basalt stone walling and piers with painted masonry plinth and copings.