Donaghmore Station 39 Castlecaulfield Road Donaghmore Dungannon Co Tyrone BT70 3HF

Donaghmore Station is a former railway complex dating from 1861, built for the Portadown, Dungannon and Omagh Railway Company and located on the east side of the Castlecaulfield Road, approximately half a mile south of Donaghmore village. The site now forms part of a working farmyard, accessed by lanes from both north and south, with a large Dutch corrugated-metal barn at its eastern end. The complex is unoccupied and derelict. Although closely associated with Ulster's mid-19th century railway network, it does not meet the criteria for statutory listing and is recorded here for its industrial archaeological interest only.

The station opened in September 1861 as part of the Dungannon to Omagh line, which at Omagh connected with the existing Londonderry to Enniskillen line. The line was operated under lease by the Ulster Railway Company. Donaghmore Station served the nearby village and played a significant role in supporting Messrs Brown's Soap Works, one of several local industrial enterprises active in the late 19th century and first half of the 20th century. Tallow was imported from Poland and Germany and the soap exported across Britain and Ireland. The Ulster Railway and the Northern Railway amalgamated in 1875, and the Portadown to Omagh line was incorporated into the newly formed Great Northern Railway (Ireland) in 1876. In the 1930s the Dungannon to Donaghmore section of the line was singled, with the south platform line given over to goods traffic and the goods shed becoming largely redundant, though the new goods siding remained in use until 1961. In 1958 the line passed to the Ulster Transport Authority. The station buildings and north platform were sold to Mr Herbert H Sinnamon in 1962, after which the station became a request stop, retaining only the south platform for trains carrying children from the village convent school, stopping twice daily. That south platform was also transferred to Mr Sinnamon in 1967. The line did not close officially until February 1965.

Historical valuation notebooks record the station building as measuring 45 feet by 18 feet in plan and 22 feet high, with a canopy 45 feet long and 10 feet deep on the platform side. The station master's accommodation comprised a kitchen, sitting room, and four bedrooms. The adjacent yard contained an outhouse measuring 35 feet by 9 feet by 8 feet along its north side and a small toilet measuring 9 feet by 3 feet by 8 feet at its south-eastern corner. The goods shed measured 44 feet by 34 feet by 20 feet, and the platforms were over 350 feet long. The complex is cited in valuation books as "station house and store" from 1863 onwards.

The original complex comprised the station building, associated outbuildings and yard, goods shed, platform, weighbridge, and siding along the north side of the line, together with a platform, waiting room, and signal cabin on the south side. Of these, only the station building, goods shed, and platforms now survive.

STATION BUILDING

The station building is a two-storey, two-bay former station house aligned east to west. It has a shallow hipped natural slate roof with two brick chimneys — one towards the west end, one on the east gable — oversailing eaves with exposed rafter tails, and vestiges of ogee cast-iron gutters. The walls are of rendered rubble sandstone, embellished at the exposed corners with stepped, vee-jointed and margined rusticated sandstone quoins. All openings are trimmed with brick, also rendered over, and all windows are 2-over-2 timber sliding sashes with dressed sandstone cills.

The north elevation is four openings wide. On the third opening from the left is a single-storey entrance porch, pitched-roofed and otherwise detailed to match the main block. The porch has a double-leaf four-panel door with a rectangular overlight and remnants of an electric light fitting above, all set within a moulded stucco surround. Each cheek of the porch has a segmental-headed window, though the right-hand one is missing and has been sheeted over. To the right of the porch is one window, and to the left are two windows, all with flat heads; the left window also has vertical metal security bars. The first floor has four windows, all in line with those below.

The east gable is abutted by a single-storey building, and the exposed wall above is devoid of openings.

The south elevation faces onto the platform. At its centre is a segmental-headed doorway with a moulded stucco surround and vestiges of an electric light fitting above; it is now sheeted over with corrugated metal. To its left is one window, and to its right are two windows, both sheeted over, all with flat heads. Between the two right-hand windows is a small round-headed opening, probably for a stove flue and possibly a later insertion. The first floor has four windows detailed as on the north elevation. Between the two floors the ghost of the former canopy, which once ran the full length of the building and extended out over the platform, is still visible.

The west gable is blank. At its right-hand end, a rubble stone wall with a brick-trimmed opening extends across the end of the platform and returns parallel with the track up to the base of the bridge approach over the line. A flight of steps once descended from the road to the station, but no obvious traces of these now remain.

OUTBUILDINGS AND YARD

Originally there was an enclosed yard between the station building and the goods shed. Along the inside north side of the yard ran a single-storey outbuilding, and at the south-east corner was a toilet. These original structures no longer survive, with the exception of the yard's north and south walls, both of which are of rubble masonry. These two walls were later incorporated into a large single-storey shed with a pitched, sky-lit natural slate roof. The yard's north elevation is now externally rendered and has a doorway at each end; the left-hand doorway has been infilled and a window inserted. On the south elevation there is an infilled brick-trimmed opening, possibly originally a doorway into the former toilet within the yard, and a modern metal-framed window.

GOODS SHED

The goods shed lies at the east end of the north platform and has been extensively modified, most notably by the addition of lean-to animal sheds along its north and east elevations. The sky-lit natural slate roof has been extended over this later lean-to addition, and this pitch may have been entirely re-slated. There is also a later concrete-brick chimney on the east gable. There are no rainwater goods. The walls are unrendered and of squared rubble masonry with plain quoins.

The north elevation retains its wide doorway — though the doors themselves are gone — in what is now the party wall with the lean-to, and is otherwise blank. On the east gable, goods wagons originally entered through a segmental-arched opening at the south end, of which only the dressed stone head is now clearly visible. A later doorway has been inserted into this gable at ground floor level, and another at first floor right; both have concrete heads and jambs. A brick-trimmed oculus survives at the apex of the gable. The south elevation is devoid of openings except for a small hole crudely punched through at a later date. A later roofless concrete-block lean-to spans the former track on this elevation. The west gable is blank except for a later door giving access to the adjoining byre in the former yard.

LINE AND PLATFORMS

All remnants of the actual railway track are long gone. Traces of both platforms survive immediately south of the buildings. Although mostly buried or covered by overgrowth, they are still evident as vertical rubble masonry walls topped with oversailing concrete decks. The line continued west of the station beneath a segmental masonry stone bridge, which still carries the road over the former line, though its arch is now largely infilled.