Former LMS Railway Terminus, Molesworth Street, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8PA

Former LMS Railway Terminus, Molesworth Street, Cookstown, County Tyrone

This is a former Italianate railway terminus on Molesworth Street, Cookstown, built between 1855 and 1856 to designs by the renowned architect Charles Lanyon, with William Dargan as contractor. It is a long, single-storey sandstone building of high quality construction and detailing, now in use as a restaurant. The building is an important surviving example of Victorian Irish railway architecture, and a good if modest example of Lanyon's work. It shares group value with the adjoining buildings on Molesworth Street, and more particularly with the other former railway buildings nearby.

The building consists of two parts: the former station to the south and the former platform to the north, now enclosed as part of the restaurant. The former station is rectangular in plan with a projecting central entrance porch. The former platform building to the rear is also rectangular.

The symmetrical south elevation faces the street. It features paired round-headed windows with 1-over-1 painted timber sash frames, all with cut sandstone surrounds set on a carved stone sill with carved stone corbel brackets beneath. A projecting cut sandstone impost course runs continuously along the front elevation at springing-line level. The entrance porch has square-headed 1-over-1 timber sash windows to its side elevations, set at plinth level. A painted panelled double timber door faces south, surmounted by an infilled roundel within the porch. Cut-stone surrounds are used consistently throughout. The projecting impost course of the main elevation steps over the porch windows. A modern retractable shop blind, added around 2007 to the west of the front porch, incorporates a smoking area.

The east elevation shows the former station block to the left and the platform building to the right. The former station has paired round-headed windows as described above. The platform building projects slightly forward and is stepped in height. It has a large glazed opening with replacement aluminium glazing, surmounted by face-fixed painted timber boards. The west elevation is cement rendered with no openings to the former station block. A stepped cement rendered wall separates the station from the platform building, and the elevation of the former platform is obscured from view. The rear north elevation is partially obscured by an adjacent warehouse building, and comprises a series of round-headed openings that have been blocked up. A chamfered cut-stone plinth runs around the base of the elevations.

The roofs are hipped and covered in artificial slate. The former station has oversailing soffit eaves with simple carved projecting timber brackets. The porch has a gable-ended pitched roof with decorative carved timber brackets to the corners of the eaves. The platform building has a gable end to the west elevation and a continuous rooflight to the apex of the roof. The original Italianate chimneys have been removed.

Much of the good quality interior detail survives intact, contributing to the sense of style and importance of the building. The exposed roof structure has been well maintained, and minor amendments do not detract from the character of the original fabric.

According to W. A. McCutcheon's study of the industrial archaeology of Northern Ireland, all of the original Belfast and Ballymena Railway Company's stations were built on similar lines: long single-storey blocks with coupled round-headed, horizontally glazed windows, squared random rubble, dressed window openings, and ornamental stucco quoins. At Cookstown, McCutcheon describes the terminus as particularly impressive, noting its 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. He records that the porched entrance had oversailing eaves and a single elegant Italianate chimney, and that the platform behind looked across a single track to a plain-arched colonnade of squared random rubble pillars supporting a canopy, forming what he described as "a little house into which the train drew up." He further notes that at Cookstown the masonry is uncovered, whereas at the other stations on the line it is clad in painted stucco with the main constructional details often picked out in different colours.

The building is set slightly back from Molesworth Street, surrounded by a low snecked stone wall with painted railings. There is a tarmac car park to the front and a modern retail building to the rear. The terminus is situated in the north-east of Cookstown town centre, adjacent to an assortment of former railway buildings.

Historically, the building originally served as the Cookstown terminus of the Belfast and Ballymena Railway Company's line from Randalstown to Cookstown, which opened on 10th November 1856. The Belfast and Ballymena Railway Company became the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway in 1860. In 1903, that company was taken over by the Midland Railway, which operated it through the Northern Counties Committee. Following nationwide amalgamations in 1923, the line passed to the London Midland and Scottish Railway. With nationalisation in 1948, it transferred to the British Transport Commission, and was sold the following year to the Ulster Transport Authority, finally closing in August 1950. Cookstown was unusual in being served by two separate railway companies; this terminus stood alongside the contrasting Great Northern Railway station of 1878 to 1879.

After closure the building appears to have remained in the ownership of the Ulster Transport Authority and its successor, Northern Ireland Railways, through the 1950s and 1960s, possibly serving as a store. When surveyed in October 1970 it had become semi-derelict. It remained unused until 1977, when, following sale to a private owner, it was converted to a motor accessories store. By 1983 it had become a farm supplies shop, remaining in that use until at least 1989. It was converted to a restaurant at some point after 2002.

The 1916 valuation records the full extent of the station complex at its height as comprising a passenger station house, goods office and stores, lavatory and lamp room, advertising spaces, sites of oil tank and automatic machines, platforms, roofs and approaches, sidings, and a stationmaster's house, offices and yard. The stationmaster's house, now a separate listed building in use as offices, was added to the site in 1883 according to the valuations. 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 likely to have served as an outbuilding associated with the stationmaster's house.