Irish Railway Architecture

Nearing the end of my day-excursion  stopping at the stations along the way to Howth, the calm twinkling sea guided my train into Sutton railway station. Sutton Station - platform view An unassuming building, Sutton Station is a simple white-washed, single-storey Georgian example of functional symmetry. The projecting iron and wood (not glass) veranda jaggedly but gracefully sweeps towards the building mirroring the ironworks’ curves. The ‘GNR’ emblem finishes the company's decorative addition. 'GNR' emblem under station canopy Opened as Baldoyle & Sutton in 1846, it was renamed Sutton in 1901 until 1916 when it was renamed as Sutton and Baldoyle. It reverted again to Sutton in 1935. The footbridge is a modern replacement of the original lattice-girder design favoured by the GNRI and its chief engineer, William Hemingway Mills. Tickets please!  Shown above is that the station building was originally natural stone colour, and not white. I particularly like

Alighting onto a post-apocalyptic concrete and steel abyss I surveyed the mesh of stairs, like an Escher lithograph, leading everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. “Where am I?” asked a bemused elderly lady I had stepped onto the platform with: “Howth Junction”. “Oh dear”. Relativity, M. C. Escher, Lithograph, 1953. Oh dear indeed. Where is the front of this ‘station’? I refuse to call it one: it is merely a set of stairs and a lift. Following signs to the exit I’m greeted with a dystopian Alice in Wonderland prospect of turning left into a car park and right along an overgrown, dirty footpath. I choose the latter; at least it might lead somewhere. The path to former station master's house, Howth Junction Dodging filth like the mad hatter, the elegant brick gables, stone lintels and terracotta chimney stacks of the former station master’s house can be spied amongst a wilderness of ivy, grass and razored-fencing. Forlornly neglected, the graceful merging of Classical ped