Former Station master's house (and waiting room), 148-150 Ballydugan Road, Tullymurry, Downpatrick, County Down, BT30 8HH

Former Station Master's House and Waiting Room

This large two-storey former station master's house dates from 1897 and is built in typical late Victorian railway style with polychrome brick and overhanging gables. It stands on a slight rise to the south side of Ballydugan Road, approximately four miles south-west of Downpatrick. The building is now divided into two dwellings and incorporates an attached single-storey former waiting room. The station itself closed in 1950, and the former railway cutting to the rear has been filled in, though the platform edging has been retained.

The front elevation presents a complex composition of gabled bays and projecting sections. To the right of the north front is a two-storey gabled bay that projects forward slightly. The front door sits to the right of this bay within a small projecting gabled porch. It is set in a brick segmental arch-headed opening with chamfered reveals, and is furnished with a plain fanlight and a four-panel door with each panel infilled with diagonal boarding. The verge is finished with an overhanging decorative bargeboard.

To the left of the porch is a segmental arch-headed window with a sash frame without astragals. The first floor has two similar evenly-spaced windows. To the right of the two-storey bay is the side elevation of a further two-storey gabled bay whose gable faces west, with single windows to both ground and first floors. To the right of this is a single-storey flat-roofed projection containing one window of the same type.

The left portion of the front elevation is occupied by the former waiting room, which is single-storey and gabled. At its centre is a door opening similar in type to the main entrance but now containing a modern glazed door with side panels. Either side of this door are two windows as described above. To the far left is a partly demolished wall that appears to have been a screen wall to a small yard. To the right of the waiting room door is an Edward VII wall-mounted post box.

The east gable of the waiting room has a right-of-centre door opening. Marks on the wall to the left of this suggest that a lean-to was recently removed. At the apex of the gable is an oculus feature with a ventilation grill infill. The exposed east sections of the main house, which show above the waiting room roof, are blank. The west gable of the two-storey section showing above the single-storey flat-roofed section is similarly blank. The west gable of the flat-roofed section itself has a left-of-centre window opening with chamfered reveals but without drip moulding.

The rear south face of the waiting office contains eight openings. The far left is a door opening with a modern door featuring a glazed panel. To its right are two windows of the standard type, followed by three door openings which are now built up with concrete blockwork. The far right contains two further window openings. To the left of the single-storey section is a projecting two-storey gabled section with a ground floor window to the right side and two evenly-spaced first floor windows. A ground floor door to the left of this section was blocked in using matching facing brick at some point. To the left again is the side of a two-storey gabled section with a window each to ground and first floor. The far left rear elevation comprises a flat-roofed single-storey section with a modern window to the left and a modern panelled door to the right.

The building is finished in red facing brick with numerous string courses formed in dark blue engineering brick. The string courses at ground and first floor window level are paired and slightly projecting. The roof is covered with Bangor Blue slate, and the overhanging eaves feature decorative bargeboards. The ridge is finished with fire clay coxcomb-style ridge tiles.

The two-storey section has one large chimney stack that may have been altered at some point with loss of some brick detailing. The single-storey waiting room has two chimney stacks, each with brick corbelled details. The facing brick of the eastern stack has been badly eroded.