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

Former Stationmaster's House, 102 Church Street, Dromore

A two-storey former railway stationmaster's house with attached waiting room and ticket office, built in 1861-62 for the Banbridge, Lisburn and Belfast Railway Company by architect Thomas Jackson. The building is constructed in characteristic mid-19th-century Italianate style, with red brick walls in Flemish Bond, purple engineering brick dressings and quoins, and a sandstone base course. It closed with the railway in 1956 and now operates as a play school and nursery.

The building sits prominently on a rise on the western edge of Dromore, on the southern side of Church Street. A large tarmac car park lies to the east, beyond which stands the former goods shed belonging to the station. The structure is of irregular plan, comprising a two-storey hipped-roof block to the east with a long, reducing single-storey hipped-roof return extending westwards.

Characteristic Italianate features include an overhanging roof supported on paired brackets, an abundance of semicircular-headed window and door openings, and purple brick dressings with sandstone keystones. All roofs are hipped, overhanging, and covered with natural slate with clay ridge tiles. Three brick chimney stacks have replacement plain caps.

The east front façade of the main block is symmetrical, with a central semicircular-headed doorway with sandstone keystone and wide timber door with fielded panels. To either side are windows with 1/1 timber sash frames and painted stone sills; the first floor has three shorter windows with 2/2 timber sash frames, similarly styled. The south elevation comprises the main two-storey section and the return. The main section's ground floor has four symmetrically arranged windows with the middle two paired; the first floor has three symmetrical windows. Three ground floor windows and one first floor window have modern replacement frames; the remainder match the front. The south side of the return is blank, with a later lean-to extension added to its right-hand end. A long narrow yard to the south of the return is enclosed by a tall brick wall rising from a rock-faced sandstone string course, which in turn sits on a random rubble retaining wall.

The west elevation is largely obscured by the returns; visible portions are blank. At the west end of the return are a recent lean-to open canopy and an original open archway. The north elevation originally faced the now-removed platform. The return's northern face features three small high-level windows to the left, a doorway, two taller windows, another doorway, and a further tall window to the far right; windows have modern replacement frames and doorways have panelled timber doors. The main building's north face displays a panelled doorway to the ground floor left, followed by a full-height canted bay with single windows to each side facet and a grouping of three windows centrally. To the bay's right is a short window created by blocking most of a former doorway, with a pair of taller windows beyond. The first floor has seven windows: one to far left, four to the bay, and two to right. Most retain 1/1 sash frames; several have modern timber replacements. The central ground floor window of the bay has an unusual frame comprising a roundel over a semicircular-headed light. Some ground floor windows have security bars. A high brick wall extends along the left end of the north elevation, continuing eastward to originally secure the platform; a flat-headed door opening lies immediately left, with a wide gate opening (gates removed) farther left.

To the east, the building is set on a three-step sandstone plinth, now guarded by modern metal railings. Extensive random rubble walling runs alongside Church Street, accounting for the ground level difference; this walling is a significant feature of the former railway complex and visually unites the listed house with a single-span bridge.