Former stationmaster's house, 102 Church Street, Dromore, BT25 1AA

Former Stationmaster's House and Ticket Office, 102 Church Street, Dromore

This is a former railway stationmaster's house with an attached waiting room and ticket office, built in 1861–62 in a red brick Italianate style for the Banbridge, Lisburn and Belfast Railway Company. It was designed by Thomas Jackson, one of the most prominent architects working in 19th-century Ireland, who was employed by the company to design all of its stations at Banbridge, Dromore, Hillsborough and Mullafernaghan. The contractor at Dromore was William Nimmick, and the estimated construction cost was £1,705. The station opened to traffic on 7th July 1863. It forms part of a group of related railway structures that share architectural and historical significance, including a nearby viaduct, a single-span railway bridge, and a goods shed — all also designed by Thomas Jackson. The building is of particular importance as a relatively well-preserved example of mid-Victorian railway heritage, and its prominent position contributes meaningfully to the Dromore streetscape.

The building is of irregular plan and sits prominently on a rise on the western edge of Dromore, set back from the southern side of Church Street. To the east is a large tarmac car park, beyond which lies the former goods shed. The main element is a two-storey hipped-roof block to the east, behind which extends a long, gradually reducing single-storey hipped-roof return to the rear (west). The character is broadly Italianate: the roofs overhang on paired brackets, the walls are in red brick laid in Flemish Bond with purple (engineering) brick dressings and quoins, and a sandstone base course runs at the foot of the walls. Almost all window and door openings are semicircular-headed, with purple brick dressings and sandstone keystones.

The east-facing front façade of the main block is symmetrical. At ground floor there is a central doorway with a wide timber door with fielded panels, flanked on each side by windows with 1/1 timber sash frames and painted stone sills. At first floor there are three shorter windows, otherwise similar but with 2/2 timber sash frames.

The south elevation presents the side of the main two-storey section to the right and the side of the return to the left. At ground floor of the main section, four windows are symmetrically arranged, with the middle two paired. At first floor, three windows are symmetrically placed. Three of the ground floor windows and one at first floor have been replaced with modern frames; the remainder match those on the front. The south side of the return has no openings. A lean-to extension has been added to the right-hand end of this side of the return. To the south of the return is a long narrow yard enclosed by a tall brick wall, which sits on top of a rock-faced sandstone string course, which is itself set on top of a random rubble retaining wall.

The west elevation of the main block is largely obscured by the return; the visible sections are plain and without openings. At the western end of the return there is a recent lean-to open canopy and an original open archway.

The north elevation originally faced the platform, which has since been removed. On the northern face of the return, moving from left to right, there are three small high-level windows (which originally appear to have been two taller windows and a doorway), followed by a doorway, two taller windows, and then another doorway and a further tall window at the far right. The doorways retain panelled timber doors, while the windows have modern replacement frames. On the northern face of the main building, at ground floor level, there is a doorway to the left matching those described above. Immediately to its right is a full-height canted bay window, with a single window to each of its side facets and a grouping of three windows to its central facet. To the right of the bay is a short window — created by blocking most of what was originally a doorway — with a pair of taller windows to its right. At first floor there are seven windows in total: one at the far left, four lighting the bay, and two to the right. Most retain their original 1/1 sash frames, with a few modern timber replacements. The central ground-floor window in the bay has an unusual frame consisting of a roundel over a semicircular-headed light. Some of the ground floor windows have security bars. At the left-hand end of the north elevation there is a high brick wall extending eastward, which would originally have enclosed and secured the platform. There is a flat-headed door opening immediately to the left of the building, and a wide gate opening further left from which the gates have been removed.

All roofs are hipped, overhanging, and covered with natural slate with clay ridge tiles. The overhangs are carried on paired brackets. There are three brick chimney stacks whose plain caps are probably later replacements. To the east, the building stands on a three-step sandstone plinth, now guarded by modern metal railings along the step edges.

The boundary walling alongside Church Street is a significant feature of the former railway complex. Because of the difference in ground levels between the building and the road, there is extensive random rubble walling along this frontage. This walling, which is partly topped by brick and includes a rock-faced sandstone string course at one point, serves visually to unite the stationmaster's house with the single-span railway bridge nearby.

The station was later absorbed into the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) and remained in operation until the closure of the line in 1956. After closure, the building appears to have been largely vacant for much of the following decade. By around the 1970s or 1980s the ground floor was in use as a builder's office and the upper floor as an apartment. After another extended period of vacancy during the 1990s, the building was converted to a nursery school in 2000, undergoing extensive renovation at that time. It was in use as a nursery school and play school at the time of the listing survey. The former goods shed, which was in use as a livestock mart when first surveyed in 1994, subsequently housed a car repair business and breaker's yard.