Traks Niteclub, Eglinton St., Portrush, Co.Antrim

Former Portrush Railway Station, now in retail use, built in 1893 as a mock-Tudor railway terminus for the Belfast & Northern Counties Railway. Designed by Berkeley Deane Wise, the company's Chief Engineer (appointed 1888), and constructed by McLaughlin & Harvey. It is arguably the finest example of Wise's distinctive mock-Tudor style, which also appears at Carrickfergus and Whitehead railway stations, and remains one of the most distinctive and instantly recognisable stations in Northern Ireland. It was reportedly the first building to be statutorily listed by the Historic Monuments & Buildings Branch of the Department of the Environment Northern Ireland, listed on 26 March 1974. The building has group value with the signal box and water towers at the south end of the platforms.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The site was originally the northern terminus of the Ballymena, Ballymoney, Coleraine & Portrush Junction Railway, built by William Dargan between 1853 and 1855. A small railway terminus is shown on the 1855 Ordnance Survey map. In 1861 the line was sold to the Belfast & Northern Counties Railway (BNCR). In 1866 a short extension was made from a station siding to Portrush Harbour for goods traffic. In 1883 a separate narrow-gauge track was opened from the station to Bushmills by the Giant's Causeway, Portrush & Bush Valley Tramway Company. This line was extended to the Giant's Causeway in 1887 and has the distinction of being the world's first tramway powered by hydro-electricity. The growing popularity of Portrush as a seaside resort prompted the BNCR to rebuild the station in enlarged form in 1893, with a projecting west wing housing a spacious café. The BNCR was taken over by the Midland Railway (Northern Counties Committee) in 1903, which was reconstituted as the London, Midland & Scottish Railway (Northern Counties Committee) in 1923. At nationalisation in 1949 the line passed to the Ulster Transport Authority, the precursor of Translink, its present operators. The harbour line and the Giant's Causeway tramway both closed in 1949, and goods services from Coleraine to Portrush were withdrawn in 1954. In the 1970s the original station building was replaced for operational purposes by a much smaller utilitarian brick structure to its south. The former station building was subsequently used for a time as Trax Night Club and is now occupied as a retail outlet. The café wing on the west side has been demolished, and a large modern extension has been built across the back of the canopied platform section.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The building is a well-proportioned, single-storey block in a distinctive half-timbered mock-Tudor style, with a prominent brick and half-timbered clock tower to the front and a timber-clad platform concourse to the rear. For descriptive purposes the station complex is divided into four parts: the front section, the tower, the platform section, and the modern extension.

Front Section

A single-storey building aligned east to west across the front of the block. It has a pitched artificial slate roof with exposed rafter tails and no chimneys, although there were originally three. The west gable has a plain bargeboard; the east gable has a raised ornate boxed bargeboard. There are three small dormers to the north pitch, each with a slated pitched roof, a pair of four-over-two-paned windows (possibly dummy), and half-timbered apexes with finials. Rainwater goods are half-round plastic gutters and downpipes.

The front (north) elevation is composed of painted half-timbered rendered panels with a frieze, set over a low brick wall with a slightly advanced base course and moulded brick coping. A gabled open porch sits at the centre, with a pitched roof, plain bargeboard, and half-timbered apex. The porch has open balustraded timber sides over brick; the middle section has been enclosed with glazing, with a pair of glass entrance doors to the front. The porch is flanked on the left by two sets of windows and on the right by three sets. Each window panel is four-over-one-paned with four two-over-two square overlights. At the right-hand end is a double-leaf timber door with an eight-over-two-pane overlight; this doorway was inserted in place of a window panel (originally three-over-one with overlights), probably at the same time as the removal of the front wing. The west gable is rendered over a rubble basalt wall brought to courses, which was originally a basement wall to the now-demolished front wing. A modern semicircular radial window has been inserted in the gable apex.

Tower

A two-stage clock tower projects from the left (west) end of the front section. The lower stage is two storeys high, rising to the ridge line of the front section, and is constructed in brick with a moulded string course. At ground-floor level there is a shallow segmental timber window with four-over-one fenestration and two-over-two leaded overlights, with a letterbox (Elizabeth II cipher) below. At first-floor level there is a flat-headed four-over-one window. Both windows have flush dressed sandstone cills. The upper stage advances on brackets beyond the brick stage on all sides and has painted half-timbered panels matching the front section. Each face of the upper stage has two rows of four two-over-two-paned windows. The roof is surmounted by a clock turret with dials to all faces, a pyramidal slate roof with metal finial, and bracketed eaves. The east side of the first stage of the tower is abutted by a lean-to with a monopitched artificial slate roof, half-timbered walls over a painted and rendered brick wall, and windows to the north and east (three-over-two and four-over-two panes respectively).

Platform Section

The platform concourse behind the front section is covered by three felted Belfast truss roofs — two wide ones over the former platform concourse and a narrower one over a corridor on the street side — now only visible on aerial photographs. The east elevation, along Eglinton Street, has boxed vertically-panelled eaves with shamrock cut-outs along the bottom edge, over white-painted horizontally timber-sheeted walls set on a painted and rendered brick base. This elevation is punctuated by black-painted vertical and horizontal frames with decorative timber infill panels. The right-hand end of this elevation is formed by the gable of the front section. There is only one opening to this elevation, a modern metal roller-shuttered door. The west elevation of the platform section was originally abutted on the left by the front wing; when the wing was removed this section of wall was rendered with cement. The exposed section of the wall, where visible, is of rubble basalt brought to courses, with miscellaneous openings now all infilled.

Modern Extension

A large single-storey extension has been built across the south end of the platform section. It has a shallow pitched corrugated cement-fibre roof and galvanised steel box gutters. The west gable is clad with profiled metal sheeting and has three small windows. The right-hand end of the south elevation is of brick with a painted and rendered blocking wall over it; the remainder is rendered but currently hidden behind an advertising banner. The east elevation to the street is half-timbered in imitation of the original platform section, with two roller shutter doors. This modern extension does not form part of the listed building.

INTERIOR

The internal character of the building has been lost in conversion to other uses.

SETTING

The station is located at the south-west end of Portrush town, at the top of Eglinton Street. To the front is a paved and landscaped pedestrian area, beyond which stands the Town Hall. Eglinton Street runs along the east side of the block. To the south is the modernised Portrush Railway Station, a single-storey flat-roofed roughcast-rendered block. At the south end of the platforms are a signal box and water towers, both still functioning, which contribute to the group value of the complex. To the west is Barry's Amusement Arcade. The station is one of the most prominent and instantly recognisable buildings in Portrush and serves as a tangible reminder of the key role the railway played in developing the town as one of the province's premier seaside resorts.