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Up to Drogheda - Finally!

Following my sunny escapade to Laytown my station safari continued to Drogheda - finally. Sitting to the south of the illustrious River Boyne marking County Louth’s dent into County Meath, I drive up the approach ramp to be met with the mini-temple that is Drogheda railway station. 
Drogheda Station (Buildings of Ireland)
Designed by the renowned architect George Papworth for the Dublin and Drogheda Railway (DDR) the station was not built by the time the line ran its first train from Dublin in 1844. The original holding station was located to the south-west at Newtown, with the opening of Papworth’s station in 1852. The brown-brick station is a nod to neo-Romanesque classicism with its H-plan footprint and stone Tuscan-inspired columned distyle portico, flanked by large rounded arch orders framing the recessed windows in the side-wings. The functional chimneys break the pitched roof bringing the viewer back to the modern-age. The entrance has been sympathetically modernised with an automatic glass-doorway.
Drogheda Station (Osgood, S.)
Drogheda Station Ticket Hall (Osgood, S.)
Artefacts from the original station remain with porter’s bell, railway posters and iron signs as well as the Greco dentils and meanders for internal cornices. A nod and an explanation to the ticket inspector sees me through to platform one, conspicuously snapping photos to the befuddlement of passengers. Train-spotters usually take photographs of trains; but I’m facing the opposite direction? 
Ring for Porter (Osgood, S.)

Platform One (Osgood, S.)
The former water-tower northward along the platform greeted me with brick detailing in accordance with Papworth’s station. A cast-iron sign stamps that the iron contractor T. Grendon and Co. of Drogheda supplied the tank in 1873. Grendon’s would continue as contractors for many projects across the GNR network after the DDR had been subsumed into the company. Perfect evidence of Ireland’s industrial archaeology. I do love a good cast-iron sign. 
Drogheda Station Water Tower (Osgood, S.)

T. Grendon and Co. (Osgood, S.)
Another remnant of the DDR is the limestone double-arch engine shed, its arches and ocular window picked out in smoother granite keystones. Beyond stands the awesome sweep of the Boyne Viaduct, John Macneill’s masterpiece; but I shall return to this in another post. 
Parcels Office (Osgood, S.)
A stroll to the southern end of the platform brings me to two GNR structures. The first is a wooden former parcels office. The original drawing from 1899 shows the meticulous attention to every detail of its construction – from the number of knots in a wooden slat, to the stalls within the adjoining bicycle shed. The pitched roof over the platform-side window at first looks like a former door, but this was the service counter, the projection providing shelter to parcel-posting passengers. Its yellow-brick neighbour, although grander in material is rather less salubrious; the gentlemen’s urinal block, possibly built at the same time. 
Gentlemen's Facilities (Osgood, S.)
Because the train which stood at platform two refused to move, I made my way across the footbridge. The main difference here was the use of a beam bridge rather than the usual lattice used at other GNR stations. This may be the result of alterations made to the station during the 1920s. Such alterations included the widening of platform two to create platform three. The waiting shelter is a GNR example inserted in Papworth’s original platform wall; both would have marked the end of the original platform. 
Waiting Shelter and Iron Roof (Osgood, S.)
The waiting shelter is a handsome in-tact and in-use example of a GNR wood and glazed surround, with diagonal slats, door brackets and dentilated entablature. Although it could do with a clean. The platform’s iron roof, which was originally glazed and finished with wooden dagger-boards, was design in 1897 and completed by 1899 for a cost of £535. 
Waiting Shelter Platform Three (Osgood, S.)
Exiting the station I take a wander along the road south of the station, aptly named Railway Terrace. Here stand six GNR railway workers’ houses, with older cottages built for the DDR behind. The GNR houses are grand red and yellow-brick two-storey residential units, but each set of three is different. In 1904 it was decided to build three five-roomed houses and three four-roomed houses at a cost of £850 and £750 per set respectively. The differences are marked by the first storey windows; one set has two bays, the other has one. All houses have yellow string-course scotia brick moulding uniting the lower-level segmental arch window and door heads. The designs are the same as at Dundalk’s Demesne Terrace; only one drawing was required for both sets of houses, although Drogheda’s were provided with front walled gardens. 
Railway Terrace (Osgood, S.)
Ready to retire back to my own house, I continue my desk-based research and find historic maps of the station which show the car park formerly had a large Goods Shed, loading platforms and lots of sidings; indeed a smaller goods shed still stands. One wonders if the front approach to the station was confused for the back, such were the industrious activities which formerly greeted passengers. There was also a carriage shed behind platform three, built in 1878, although this has now been replaced.

Another replacement would appear to be the station’s roof. An engraving by Edward Radclyffe dated 1844 shows Drogheda station as completely enclosed with a Dutch-billy glazed roof. The shape of the buildings align with Papworth’s design, but not the station’s completion date of 1852. 
Radclyffe, Edward, Dublin and Drogheda Railway (1844) (National Library  of Ireland)
Either the creation date of the engraving is wrong or the recorded completion of the station is wrong but neither seems relevant. What is certain is Drogheda station’s multitude of industrial architectural heritage from one of Ireland’s first railway companies through its second largest, up to the present day. 

And so, like the little men in the engraving, I too doff my cap and salute the coming of the railway. 
 
Now, off the Boyne Viaduct… 


Sources 
Buildings of Ireland
Geohive.ie 
GNR Board of Directors’ Minutes 
Grace’s Guide 
 Irish Architectural Archive 
 Irish Railway Record Society 
National Library of Ireland

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