Signalman's house, potato shed and small waiting room at Ballyward railway station, Station Road, Ballyward, Castlewellan, Co Down, BT31 9TU

A collection of three buildings from around 1906 originally belonging to Ballyward Railway Station, located north of Station Road approximately 5 miles northeast of Castlewellan, County Down.

The signalman's house is a relatively small, plain building with a gabled roof and roughcast façade. It originally matched the stationmaster's house to the west, but has been substantially modernised in recent years with a large rear extension, modern top-hung windows, and a flat-roofed garage built against the east side. The façade is finished in roughcast render with in-out quoins and a sill course. The gabled roof is covered in fibre cement slates with an overhang, plain barges and boxed-in eaves and verge. A rendered chimneystack sits west of the ridge centre. The rainwater goods are PVC. The front elevation, facing south, is asymmetrical. To the right of centre is a small gabled porch with slated overhanging roof and plain barges. On the west face of the porch is a panelled and glazed door within a segmental arched recess, and on the south face of the porch is a window opening with segmental arch head and modern frame. The east face of the porch is blank. To the left of the porch on the main façade are two windows. The west and east gables are blank, with the east gable abutted by the modern garage. The rear elevation could not be fully assessed, but the original gabled projection appears either to have been demolished or enlarged.

East of the house stands a large single-storey timber-built structure with a curved Belfast truss roof, originally a potato shed but believed to have been used latterly for livestock. The curved roof is covered in corrugated iron with an overhang and boxed-in eaves. The long north elevation has three large timber-sheeted double doors. The short east elevation is blank. The west elevation has a timber-sheeted pedestrian door with an adjoining small window with security bars on its left-hand end. The building measures approximately 18 metres by 7.8 metres. Adjacent to the left-hand end of the south elevation is what appears to be a cattle or sheep run and pen with concrete posts and metal rails. The south elevation façade has a pedestrian door at its centre and two high-level window openings with timber shutters to the right.

North of the shed and north of the north platform stands a very small single-storey brick-built building with a shallow mono-pitched roof, probably originally a waiting room. The symmetrical south elevation has a central timber-sheeted door (not original) with boarded sidelight and fanlight areas. To the left of the doorway is a two-light window with curved corners to each light; an identical window stands to the right. Both windows are now dilapidated and partly boarded over. The doorway and windows share a continuous concrete lintel. The short west face has a small narrow central single-light window, partly boarded over. The east and rear elevations are blank. The façade is in red brick with concrete coping.

Ballyward Railway Station formed part of the line between Ballyroney and Newcastle, which opened in 1906 and was jointly operated by the Great Northern Railway and the Belfast & County Down Railway. The buildings are believed to have been designed by the Great Northern Railway's company engineer, William Henry Mills. The line closed in 1955, having been operated solely by the Great Northern Railway for its final five years. Following closure, the station buildings were acquired by private owners and the houses were occupied as private dwellings. The potato shed was subsequently used for livestock.