46 Molesworth Street, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8PA

This is a detached two-storey former stationmaster's house, built in red brick in 1883, now used as offices. It stands adjacent to the former London Midland and Scottish Railway terminus in Cookstown, and forms part of a group of surviving railway buildings associated with the historic line between Randalstown and Cookstown.

The building is roughly rectangular in plan, with a two-storey extension added to the rear around 1990 and a single-storey porch projecting from the centre of the front elevation. External walls are laid in Flemish bond brickwork, with a chamfered brick plinth running around the base of all elevations.

The south elevation faces the street and is slightly asymmetrical. Ground floor windows are segmental-headed 4/4 sliding timber sash, and those to the upper floor are 2/2. All windows feature contrasting black brick voussoirs above, a continuous dark brick string course at window head level on both ground and first floors, and cut-stone sills throughout. The single-storey entrance porch is gable-ended and has windows matching those on the main elevation. The segmental-headed doorway on the west elevation of the porch has a painted timber sheeted door, set on a ceramic tiled step with a low cut-stone wall beside it. A small modern sign is positioned to the top right of the door. The west and east elevations each contain four segmental-headed windows as described above, and the west elevation is gable-ended. The rear north elevation has two window openings at ground level: a 2/4 timber sash window to the right, and an artificial infill panel depicting a window to the left.

The roof over the front part of the building is double-pitched with artificial slate, while the rear return has a single-pitched roof. Painted exposed timber fascias run throughout. Rainwater goods to the front elevation are cast iron; those to the rear are uPVC.

The rear extension's east elevation has matching segmental-headed windows. Its west elevation has an integral window and door at ground level, with 2/2 timber sash frames and a glazed panelled door with overlight. Openings on this façade are flat-headed and the window frames are uPVC.

The building is street-fronted, with level access directly onto the street. Pedestrian access to a rear gravelled yard is via a path alongside a low brick wall with painted cast-iron railings. A short driveway to the rear is accessed through simple profiled brick pillars fitted with cast-iron gates and pyramidal stone caps.

The stationmaster's house sits within a broader historical context of considerable interest. The railway line it served was originally built for the Belfast and Ballymena Railway Company, which opened its branch from Randalstown to Cookstown on 10th November 1856. The engineering architect for the line was Charles Lanyon and the contractor was William Dargan. The Belfast and Ballymena Railway became the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway in 1860, which was in turn taken over by the Midland Railway in 1903, forming the Northern Counties Committee (NCC). Following UK-wide railway amalgamations in 1923, the NCC became part of the London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS). On nationalisation in 1948, the line passed to the British Transport Commission, and in 1949 was sold to the Ulster Transport Authority (UTA). The line finally closed in August 1950.

Although the line opened in 1855–56, valuation records confirm that this stationmaster's house was only added to the site in 1883. Following closure of the line, a resident named R. McKee is recorded as occupying the house from 1956 and remained there until at least 1972. The station building itself — a separate structure — appears to have remained in the ownership of the UTA and its successor Northern Ireland Railways throughout the 1950s and 1960s, possibly serving as a store for a time, before being recorded as semi-derelict when surveyed in October 1970. It was sold to a private owner in 1977 and converted to a motor accessories store, becoming a farm supplies shop by 1983, a use that continued until at least 1989, before being converted to a restaurant at some point after 2002.

A brick building to the west of the former stationmaster's house was constructed between 1895 and 1897. Its original function is uncertain, but it is thought likely to have served as an outbuilding associated with the stationmaster's house. Valuation records from 1916, when the station complex was at its greatest extent, list the railway buildings on the site as comprising a passenger station house, goods office and stores, lavatory and lamp room, advertising spaces, sites of an oil tank and automatic machines, platforms, roofs and approaches, as well as sidings and the stationmaster's house, offices and yard.

The former station building itself — distinct from this stationmaster's house — is described by W.A. McCutcheon as particularly impressive. He notes that all of the original Belfast and Ballymena Railway Company's stations were built on similar lines, featuring long single-storey blocks with coupled round-headed, horizontally-glazed windows, squared random rubble construction, dressed window openings, and ornamental stucco quoins. At Cookstown, where the central station stood alongside the contrasting Great Northern station of 1878–79, the derelict terminus has a six-bay street front flanking a projecting central entrance, each bay with coupled round-headed windows, horizontally glazed, in squared random snecked rubble with dressed window openings and impost course. The porched entrance has oversailing eaves and there is a single, elegant Italianate chimney. The platform behind looked across a single track to a plain-arched colonnade of squared random rubble pillars supporting a canopy, the whole forming what McCutcheon describes as "a little house into which the train drew up." He further notes that at Cookstown the masonry is left uncovered, whereas at the other stations it is clad in painted stucco with the main constructional details often picked out in contrasting colours.

The building shares group value with the other surviving railway structures in the area, though it is considered less finely detailed and less original in appearance, both externally and internally, than some of the other components within this group.