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

Lisburn Railway Station is a mid-19th century station complex on the Belfast to Dublin line, comprising several historically significant structures. The station includes a main building, platform canopies, an island platform with buildings, and two water supply structures. The signal box and footbridge are separately listed.

Main Station Building

The main station building is a single-storey, multi-bay structure aligned east to west along the south side of the up track (Belfast to Dublin). It features a projecting gabled entrance bay at its centre with end returns and a canopy over the trackside platform.

The building has a hipped natural slate roof to the main section, slightly raised over the central bay. Skylights previously present on the south pitch have been removed. Five yellow brick chimneys rise along the ridge, each with advanced chamfered bases and moulded brick copings. The entrance bay and returns have pitched natural slate roofs with ridges slightly higher than the main roof. The entrance bay roof features decorative ridge tiles and end finials. All gables have projecting plain bargeboards with decorative timber fretwork beneath, carried on brackets fixed to the walls. Boxed eaves have plastic and cast-iron ogee-profile gutters with metal downpipes — circular in cross-section on the street (south) elevation and rectangular, recessed into the wall, on the platform (north) elevation.

The walls are yellow brick with an advanced chamfered base course and advanced eaves course. A course of black and red brick runs at both window sill and window head spring levels. Unless otherwise noted, all openings are recessed within semicircular heads with stopped roll mouldings to their jambs. Each opening head 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 have 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 containing a pair of wrought-iron gates at the extreme right (east) end, now used as a night gate to and from the platform. The projecting middle section is eight openings wide. The gabled section contains four of these openings, including the principal entrance at its left end — a pair of semi-glazed timber doors with rectangular overlights, set in a stopped roll-moulded square-headed opening. To its right are two narrow semicircular-headed two-over-two sash windows with a common granite sill. Further right is a former doorway now glazed and sheeted. The sections either side of the gabled 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 inside ends of the supporting beams rest on ornate cast-iron brackets bearing circular Great Northern Railway Ireland (GNRI) 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 these particular windows' jambs. The inside cheek of each return contains a pair of semicircular-headed one-over-two sash windows detailed as above. The walls between the middle projection and end returns have a margined sliding sash window at each end, similarly detailed. 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 platform. Some of these openings are contiguous, creating the impression of an arcade. The middle section also contains a pair of semi-glazed doors to and from the platform. The brickwork, doors, and windows are detailed as on the south elevation. Some doors are now dummies, the internal rooms having been reconfigured.

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 windows, detailed as those on the main section of the south elevation.

Main Platform Canopy

This canopy runs the full length of the station platform, covering the platform serving 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 resting on triangular metal trusses. The inside ends of the trusses are affixed 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 GNRI insignias.

Platforms

The platform alongside the main station building serves Belfast to Dublin trains on the up line. The platform opposite it, on the island, serves Dublin to Belfast trains on the down line, whilst 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 buildings aligned east to west which are connected to one another by a canopy extending over the platforms along either side (number two platform to the south and number three platform to the north). This platform is accessed by a staircase down from the footbridge at its east end.

Each building is single-storey. Their roofs form part of the canopy. The walls are painted brick (green base, cream above) with shallow pilasters to their external faces. The 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. The sides and ends are sheeted with vertical tongue-and-groove timber embellished with a sawtooth along their bottom edges. The underside has a suspended sheeted ceiling. The canopy runs from the west gable of the west building to beyond the east gable of the east building. The sections alongside both buildings and beyond the east one are supported on horizontal metal beams with curved metal brackets at their inner ends attached to alternate pilasters. The section between the buildings is similarly detailed, but with beams and brackets secured to two rows of cast-iron columns. Electric lights are affixed to the underside of the sheeted soffit. The platform is tarmacked and edged with concrete. A signal box sits at its west end.

Circular Water Tank

This water tank is located at the east end of the island platform. It is a freestanding structure comprising a circular open-topped tank on top of 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 its maker's mark: "A. Brown & Sons Ltd. 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 its supporting column.

Rectangular Water Tower

This disused water tank is located on the embankment at the northwest end of the station complex, alongside North Circular Road. It is a freestanding structure comprising an open rectangular water tank on top of a single-storey brick pump room.

The tank is of cast-iron plates bolted to one another along flanges on their inside faces. There are rounded quadrant pieces along its 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 its right, 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. It has two recessed semicircular-headed window openings on the south elevation and one on the west end, 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 (presumably decorative rather than structural). A metal-sheeted door is set in the east end within a recessed shallow segmental-headed opening.

A timber depth gauge is positioned between the two south windows, with a metal pulley bracket affixed to the top of the tank above it; the actual float 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 in the middle of the west elevation (disconnected inside).

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 is a pedestrian masonry archway giving access to the north end of the footbridge. Engine sheds were originally located at the northwest corner of the site but have been demolished to make way for modern buildings now outside the premises and separated from them by a metal security fence.