Lisburn Railway Station, Railway Street, Lisburn, Co Antrim, BT28 1XW

Lisburn Railway Station is an extensive and ornate railway complex built in 1878 for the Great Northern Railway (Ireland), located on Railway Street, Lisburn, County Antrim. It was designed by William Henry Mills, the company's Chief Civil Engineer from 1877 to 1909, and replaced the Ulster Railway's original station that had served the Belfast–Lisburn line since its opening in 1839. The complex sits within a conservation area and is of considerable industrial archaeological interest. It comprises six principal components: the main station building, the main platform canopy, the platforms, the island platform building and canopy, a circular water tank, and a rectangular water tower.

The station was constructed just two years after the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) was formed through the amalgamation of the Ulster Railway and the Northern Railway Company (Ireland). The style, proportion and ornamentation of the main building and its canopy are characteristic of many Great Northern Railway (Ireland) stations designed by Mills. Notably, the extensive use of plain and moulded coloured brick, rather than stone, was innovative within the context of Irish railway architecture. The building's plan skilfully integrates private and public spaces into a single functioning unit. Although the exterior survives substantially intact, modernisation work has somewhat diminished the character of the interiors. Few Great Northern Railway (Ireland) stations survive in such a complete state, and Lisburn is considered possibly the best preserved in Northern Ireland, comparable in survival and extent to Dundalk station, which the same company opened sixteen years later in 1894.

MAIN STATION BUILDING

The main station building is a single-storey, multi-bay structure with a projecting gabled entrance at its centre, end returns at each end, and a canopy over the trackside platform. The whole building runs east–west along the south side of the up track (from Belfast to Dublin). The main section has a hipped natural slate roof, slightly raised over the central bay. Skylights formerly existed on the south pitch but have been removed. Five yellow-brick chimneys run along the ridge, each with an advanced chamfered base and moulded brick coping. The end returns and projecting entrance bay have pitched natural slate roofs with ridges set slightly higher than the main roof. The entrance bay roof has decorative ridge tiles and end finials. All these gabled sections have projecting plain bargeboards, beneath which is decorative timber fretwork carried on brackets fixed to the walls. The eaves are boxed, with plastic and cast-iron gutters of ogee profile and metal downpipes; the downpipes are circular in cross-section on the street (south) elevation and rectangular in cross-section, recessed into the wall, on the platform (north) elevation.

The walls are of yellow brick with an advanced chamfered base course and an advanced eaves course. Courses of black and red brick appear at both window sill level and window head spring level. Unless otherwise noted, all openings are recessed within semicircular heads and have stopped roll mouldings to their jambs. The head of each opening is accentuated by a brick hood mould in black brick, which continues along the top of the black and red brick platband. All window openings contain margined one-over-two timber sliding sashes, and finely dressed granite sills set flush with the walls.

The principal elevation faces south onto a small car park fronting the street. It is symmetrical except for a semi-elliptical archway at the extreme right (east) end containing a pair of wrought-iron gates, now used as a night gate to and from the platform. The projecting middle section is eight openings wide; the gabled portion contains four of these openings, including the principal entrance at its left end, which comprises a pair of semi-glazed timber doors each with a rectangular overlight, set in a stopped roll-moulded square-headed opening. To the right of this are two narrow semicircular-headed two-over-two sash windows sharing a common granite sill, and further right is a former doorway that has been glazed and sheeted over. The sections either side of the gabled middle section each contain a pair of semicircular-headed windows. Projecting in front of the entrance gable is a glazed hipped canopy cantilevered on metal beams and edged with serrated vertical timber weatherboarding. The inner ends of the supporting beams rest on ornate cast-iron brackets bearing circular Great Northern Railway (Ireland) insignias.

Both end returns contain two two-over-two margined sliding sash windows with advanced jambs and flat heads, all with roll mouldings. Above each window is a moulded ogee brick cornice with two scrolled brackets, a course of scalloping underneath, and a pseudo blocking course above. The upper red, black and red brick platband is discontinuous across the jambs of these particular windows. The inside cheek of each return contains a pair of semicircular-headed one-over-two sash windows detailed as above. The walls between the central projection and the end returns each contain a margined sliding sash window at each end, also detailed as above. The west elevation has no openings.

The platform (north) elevation has multiple semicircular-headed windows and doors on either side of a glazed and sheeted middle section between the entrance hall and the platform. Some of these openings are contiguous, giving the impression of an arcade. The middle section also contains a pair of semi-glazed doors giving access to and from the platform. The brickwork, doors and windows of this elevation are detailed as on the street elevation. Some doors are now dummies, the internal rooms having been reconfigured. The interior was refurbished in the late 1990s.

The east elevation is four openings wide. At each end is a four-panel painted timber door with a semicircular overlight. Between them are two semicircular-headed windows, detailed as those on the main section of the south elevation.

MAIN PLATFORM CANOPY

The main platform canopy runs the full length of the station platform, covering the platform that serves Belfast to Dublin trains. It has a hipped natural slate roof with skylights to both pitches and is edged with serrated vertical timber weatherboarding. The slates are supported on common rafters over purlins, which in turn rest on triangular metal trusses. The inner ends of these trusses are fixed to the eaves of the station building and are also supported at their centres by a row of decorative cast-iron columns. Ornate cast-iron brackets between the columns and trusses carry circular Great Northern Railway (Ireland) insignias. The main platform canopy first appears on the 1900 Ordnance Survey map.

PLATFORMS

The platform alongside the main station building serves Belfast to Dublin trains on the up line. The platform opposite, on the island, serves Dublin to Belfast trains on the down line, while the platform along the other side of the island formerly served the Antrim line. The platforms are generally of rubble stonework with tarmacked top surfaces edged with concrete. A rubble masonry wall runs along the back of the up platform. The island platform has been extended westwards.

ISLAND PLATFORM BUILDING AND CANOPY

The island platform, just north of the main platform, contains two single-storey buildings aligned east–west, connected to one another by a canopy that extends over the platforms along either side (platform two to the south and platform three to the north). The island platform is accessed by a staircase descending from the footbridge at its east end. The walls are of painted brick (green at the base, cream above), with shallow pilasters to their external faces. Windows and doors are set in flat-headed openings. The doors are generally four-panelled timber with rectangular overlights. The windows are one-by-three-paned timber frames with painted masonry sills.

The canopy is of shallow pitched profile and sheeted with corrugated metal. It has ogee plastic gutters. Its sides and ends are clad with vertical tongue-and-groove timber finished with a sawtooth along the bottom edges. The underside of the canopy has a suspended sheeted ceiling with electric lights affixed to it. The canopy runs from the west gable of the western building to beyond the east gable of the eastern building. The sections alongside both buildings and beyond the eastern one are supported on horizontal metal beams with curved metal brackets at their inner ends, attached to alternate pilasters. The section between the two buildings is similarly detailed, but with beams and brackets secured to two rows of cast-iron columns. The platform surface is tarmacked and edged with concrete. A signal box sits at the western end of the island platform.

The island platform and its associated buildings and canopy also date from the 1878 rebuilding under Mills. A drawing of 1877 shows the canopy with a shallow pitched roof between the iron columns and a monopitched roof over the platform to each side. The present pitched roof is evidently a later rebuild to a new profile reusing the original columns, possibly dating from the late 1990s when the interior of the building at the east end of the platform was reconfigured as the present waiting room.

CIRCULAR WATER TANK

The circular water tank is located at the east end of the island platform. It is a free-standing structure comprising a circular open-topped tank mounted on a vertical metal column. The tank has a cast-metal base and sides of riveted metal sheeting, around the top of which is a flanged metal strengthening lip. It rests on a central hollow cast-iron column. A plate towards the base of this column carries the maker's plate reading "A. Brown & Sons Ld. Engineers Londonderry". The inside of the tank is accessed by a metal ladder, the top of which is secured to the lip. A horizontal cast-iron pipe with a plastic pipe extension projects from the base of the tank; this pipe is mounted on two brackets attached to the column so that it can swivel around. Its discharge is controlled by a chain-operated lever linked to a valve inside the tank. The tank is filled by means of a water pipe running up the inside of the supporting column.

The circular water tank first appears on the 1939 Ordnance Survey map and is absent from the 1920 edition, placing its construction in the 1920s or 1930s. It was built by the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) and is still in occasional use for steam locomotives operated by the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland. It is a now-scarce example of a type specifically designed for filling the tenders of steam locomotives, and its interest is enhanced by the fact that it remains in working order.

RECTANGULAR WATER TOWER

The rectangular water tower is a disused structure located on the embankment at the north-west end of the station complex, alongside North Circular Road. It is a free-standing structure comprising an open rectangular cast-iron water tank on top of a single-storey brick pump room. The tank is made of cast-iron plates bolted to one another along flanges on their inside faces, with rounded quadrant pieces along the top, bottom and corner edges. The top of the tank is accessed by a metal ladder attached to the wall and tank on the east side. To the right of the ladder, an inverted J-pipe projects over the lip of the tank.

The base is of red brick construction with three soldier courses forming corbelled eaves. The south elevation has two recessed semicircular-headed window openings and the west end has one, all with spoke-headed cast-iron window frames and dressed sandstone sills. The two windows on the south elevation each have an inverted relieving arch under the sills, which is presumably decorative rather than structural. There is a metal-sheeted door in the east end, set within a recessed shallow segmental-headed opening. Between the two south elevation windows is a timber depth gauge, with a metal pulley bracket fixed to the top of the tank above it; the float itself is missing. The gauge is calibrated in six-inch divisions from empty up to five feet six inches (full). The north elevation is set close to the boundary wall along North Circular Road and has no openings. A pipe projects just below eaves level at the centre of the west elevation (disconnected inside).

The water tower first appears on the 1920 Ordnance Survey map and is absent from the 1900 edition, placing its construction in the first two decades of the 20th century. It was also erected by the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) and has been disused for many years. The use of flanged cast-iron pieces for the tank contrasts with later welded steel construction. Despite its utilitarian function, the supporting brick structure exhibits a degree of ornamentation through its recessed windows with spoke-headed frames and inverted relieving arches. The tower is also of structural interest, having originally borne the load of the water-filled tank while also containing the pipework and pump (both now removed). The water gauge is an unusual survival. The tower's setting is of additional interest: it is strategically positioned at the highest point of the station complex, enabling water to be supplied under pressure throughout the site — most likely for general purposes rather than for filling locomotive tenders.

SETTING

The station complex is delineated along its east side by a road and bridge over the tracks. A high brick wall capped with terracotta copings runs along North Circular Road, through which a pedestrian masonry archway gives access to the north end of the footbridge. Engine sheds that originally stood at the north-west corner of the site have been demolished and replaced by modern buildings now outside the station premises, separated from it by a metal security fence.