52 Station Road, Garvagh, Co. Londonderry, BT51 5LA

52 Station Road, Garvagh, is an L-shaped two-and-single-storey red brick former railway station, built around 1880. It comprises the former station master's house, station waiting room, and ticket offices belonging to Garvagh railway station, which operated on the Derry Central Railway running from Magherafelt to Macfin Junction. The building opened on 18 February 1880 and is now used as a dwelling.

The building is constructed in stretcher-bonded red brick on a chamfered plinth with blue brick banding and a cavetto-moulded yellow brick banding with a dog-tooth course under the eaves. The L-shaped plan comprises a two-storey projecting gabled block and a gabled entrance bay, with an adjoining single-storey rectangular block. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with terracotta crestings and rendered chimneystacks. Plastic rainwater goods run along projecting polychrome brick eaves, with a cast-iron hopper at the rear. Windows throughout are replacement timber casements in chamfered reveals with red and blue brick cambered heads and chamfered painted flush sills, surmounted by yellow brick hood moulds.

The principal west elevation features a projecting gabled right bay with windows at each floor, a central gabled entrance bay with a first-floor window above a modern lean-to entrance porch, and a single-storey rectangular block at the left with two widely-spaced windows. The north elevation is blank at first floor; the gable of the single-storey block contains a large replacement timber window in an enlarged opening with a concrete sill. The east (rear) elevation comprises flush twin gables, each with a window to each floor and a diminutive window to the inner section at first floor, with a single-storey rectangular block at the right featuring a large glazed timber insertion with double-leaf doors and a window.

At the 1911 census, the station agent William John Boyle occupied the six-room dwelling, which was classified as second class. Valuation records show the station buildings valued at £20 in the early period, increasing to £52 in 1914, with the Station Master's house separately valued at £8, suggesting additions or alterations were made around this time. The fourth edition Ordnance Survey map of 1924-33 indicates the station buildings had been extended to the south. The railway station closed in August 1950. In 1955, the station buildings were purchased for £1,150 by James Patterson. The accommodation then comprised a reception, kitchen, scullery, pantry, outside WC, and three bedrooms. Water was obtained from a pump, and the former waiting room and ticket office were converted to use as a store and poultry shed.

The building has been significantly modified in recent years with a two-storey modern rendered extension added to the south and substantial changes to the fenestration. Although it retains quality brickwork and decorative detailing and remains easily identifiable as a former railway station, extensive alterations and additions have diminished its special architectural or historic interest.

The site is situated to the north side of Station Road, accessed by a long tree-lined laneway. At the entrance from Station Road are modern square red brick piers with pointed concrete caps supporting modern metal gates. To the northeast of the site is a gabled single-storey rendered garden house, much altered but retaining early twentieth-century detailing including decorative bargeboards, panelled timber doors, and leaded glazing. The entrance at the south elevation of the garden house has a porch under a slated catslide roof with tripartite timber mullioned windows with top sections opening on a hinge and a panelled-and-glazed timber door. A set of bolection-moulded four-panel timber doors stands at the left in a plain concrete surround with canopy, surmounted by a decorative leaded-and-stained glass transom light. The west elevation has two half timber-sheeted doors and a window. The north gable has a modern timber door at the left. No evidence of the former track or platform remains on the site.