Recovered from my rather cranky experience at Skerries, my eyes are rewarded and my heart gladdened on the approach to Balbriggan. Arriving from the south and entering the station over John Macneill’s viaduct, a neat, contained lump of a station reassures me as I alight.
Designed by George Papworth for the Dublin and Drogheda Railway (DDR) and built in 1853, Balbriggan railway station is a single-storey H-plan brown brick affair, with flanking Romanesque arches.
The current stairway from hell take me across the tracks and provide a sweeping view of the beach and harbour, as well as a stairway to heaven: the former piers for the original footbridge. The beats to Talking Head’s Road to Nowhere start bubbling in the back of my mind.
Beside the station building and its adjoining flightless steps stands the hammered stone and red brick base of the former, seemingly unadaptable, water tower.
A more sympathetic contemporary alteration in the form of glass sliding doors announce my arrival to the small central ticket hall, still adorned with its modillion-cornices, hiding under thick white gloss in contrast to the school-canteen yellow of the walls.
A side waiting room has been stripped of all comforts offering grey linoleum, a vending machine, waste bin and those awful wooden chiropractor-inducing bench chairs. The lowered ceiling abuts the window hood, probably hiding original ceiling moulding.
The mini-villa theme continues with its central stairs at the roadside entrance playing with Palladianism. Again altered (I’d argue respectfully) with glass automatic doors, the original arcaded entrance remains, perforated with an attempt at floral adornment with empty metal brackets for hanging baskets.
The romance of the romans behind me I spin and am stopped in my tracks (sorry) by the horror of the abandoned GNR station master’s house. Standing forlornly opposite the station, the house is an identikit of those handsomely conserved at Malahide and Howth, and a brick variation of the rendered example just seen at Skerries. It still retains the original moulded fascia, windows, brick chimneys and a large, overgrown, back garden.
Dejected, I wander through a gated opening in the barrack-like stone walls of the station’s boundary wall, walking closer to the viaduct and feeling smaller under its might at every step. The 11-round-arch protuberance was designed by the DDRs engineer, John Macneill. Built from external hammered stone, its internal brickwork seems miniscule, tilting delicately to support the megalith.
The weather turns and a sea mist consolidates the drizzle, the wind deciding to swirl the dampness up (yes, up) into my eyes. I huddle beneath the clapboarded Royal National Life Boat Institution, its Tudor Dutch gable hinting at a past grandeur.
The rain and mist lift, a rainbow appears over the harbour with the arch of Macneill mirroring its curve.
On my return to the station, across the car park I spy a small stone and brick warehouse building, matching the water tower on the platform.
The historic map from 1897-1913 reveals that the car park once contained three sidings, this shed accessed by wagons on a turntable, and also that another smaller structure stood where now only Land Rovers roam. The map also shows the location of the original footbridge.
A search through historic photo archives shows there was a signal cabin to the north of the station, although I did not see this on my visit. The platform and its footbridge were also covered (from that upwards rain) with a curving veranda.
Standing opposite the station are the remains of the Smyth Hosiery Factory, its many awards moulded in plaques to declare its status. A mounted information panel displays the sketch by the famous English industrialist artist, L.S. Lowry, whose view of a busy street depicts the station at the street’s vanishing point.
Standing in Lowry’s footsteps the view is somewhat less industrially romantic, echoes of the town’s former fecundity contained within its buildings, as the poet Philip Levine nimbly put it, “the decay of dignity”.
An Abandoned Factory, Detroit
The gates are chained, the barbed-wire fencing stands,
An iron authority against the snow,
And this grey monument to common sense
Resists the weather. Fears of idle hands,
Of protest, men in league, and of the slow
Corrosion of their minds, still charge this fence.
Beyond, through broken windows one can see
Where the great presses paused between their strokes
And thus remain, in air suspended, caught
In the sure margin of eternity.
The cast-iron wheels have stopped; one counts the spokes
Which movement blurred, the struts inertia fought,
And estimates the loss of human power,
Experienced and slow, the loss of years,
The gradual decay of dignity.
Men lived within these foundries, hour by hour;
Nothing they forged outlived the rusted gears
Which might have served to grind their eulogy.
Philip Levine, from On the Edge and Over: Poems, Old, Lost and New, 1976
Sources:
Archiseek
Balbrigganharbour.com
Buildings of Ireland
Eiretrains
Fingal County Council
Geohive
Designed by George Papworth for the Dublin and Drogheda Railway (DDR) and built in 1853, Balbriggan railway station is a single-storey H-plan brown brick affair, with flanking Romanesque arches.
The current stairway from hell take me across the tracks and provide a sweeping view of the beach and harbour, as well as a stairway to heaven: the former piers for the original footbridge. The beats to Talking Head’s Road to Nowhere start bubbling in the back of my mind.
Beside the station building and its adjoining flightless steps stands the hammered stone and red brick base of the former, seemingly unadaptable, water tower.
A more sympathetic contemporary alteration in the form of glass sliding doors announce my arrival to the small central ticket hall, still adorned with its modillion-cornices, hiding under thick white gloss in contrast to the school-canteen yellow of the walls.
A side waiting room has been stripped of all comforts offering grey linoleum, a vending machine, waste bin and those awful wooden chiropractor-inducing bench chairs. The lowered ceiling abuts the window hood, probably hiding original ceiling moulding.
The mini-villa theme continues with its central stairs at the roadside entrance playing with Palladianism. Again altered (I’d argue respectfully) with glass automatic doors, the original arcaded entrance remains, perforated with an attempt at floral adornment with empty metal brackets for hanging baskets.
The romance of the romans behind me I spin and am stopped in my tracks (sorry) by the horror of the abandoned GNR station master’s house. Standing forlornly opposite the station, the house is an identikit of those handsomely conserved at Malahide and Howth, and a brick variation of the rendered example just seen at Skerries. It still retains the original moulded fascia, windows, brick chimneys and a large, overgrown, back garden.
A local history search finds Mr Bennett, former station master, photographed proudly at the front of the house.
 |
| Mr Bennett, former station master at Balbiggan. Source: Balbrigganharbour.com |
Dejected, I wander through a gated opening in the barrack-like stone walls of the station’s boundary wall, walking closer to the viaduct and feeling smaller under its might at every step. The 11-round-arch protuberance was designed by the DDRs engineer, John Macneill. Built from external hammered stone, its internal brickwork seems miniscule, tilting delicately to support the megalith.
The weather turns and a sea mist consolidates the drizzle, the wind deciding to swirl the dampness up (yes, up) into my eyes. I huddle beneath the clapboarded Royal National Life Boat Institution, its Tudor Dutch gable hinting at a past grandeur.
The rain and mist lift, a rainbow appears over the harbour with the arch of Macneill mirroring its curve.
On my return to the station, across the car park I spy a small stone and brick warehouse building, matching the water tower on the platform.
The historic map from 1897-1913 reveals that the car park once contained three sidings, this shed accessed by wagons on a turntable, and also that another smaller structure stood where now only Land Rovers roam. The map also shows the location of the original footbridge.
A search through historic photo archives shows there was a signal cabin to the north of the station, although I did not see this on my visit. The platform and its footbridge were also covered (from that upwards rain) with a curving veranda.
 |
| Enterprise special and signal cabin. Source: Ciaran Cooney, credit: Joe Curtis. |
 |
| Balbriggan's veranda in 1963, credit: Benton Curtis. |
Standing opposite the station are the remains of the Smyth Hosiery Factory, its many awards moulded in plaques to declare its status. A mounted information panel displays the sketch by the famous English industrialist artist, L.S. Lowry, whose view of a busy street depicts the station at the street’s vanishing point.
 |
| L.S. Lowry, felt-tipped pen sketch of the Smyth factory |
Standing in Lowry’s footsteps the view is somewhat less industrially romantic, echoes of the town’s former fecundity contained within its buildings, as the poet Philip Levine nimbly put it, “the decay of dignity”.
An Abandoned Factory, Detroit
The gates are chained, the barbed-wire fencing stands,
An iron authority against the snow,
And this grey monument to common sense
Resists the weather. Fears of idle hands,
Of protest, men in league, and of the slow
Corrosion of their minds, still charge this fence.
Beyond, through broken windows one can see
Where the great presses paused between their strokes
And thus remain, in air suspended, caught
In the sure margin of eternity.
The cast-iron wheels have stopped; one counts the spokes
Which movement blurred, the struts inertia fought,
And estimates the loss of human power,
Experienced and slow, the loss of years,
The gradual decay of dignity.
Men lived within these foundries, hour by hour;
Nothing they forged outlived the rusted gears
Which might have served to grind their eulogy.
Philip Levine, from On the Edge and Over: Poems, Old, Lost and New, 1976
Sources:
Archiseek
Balbrigganharbour.com
Buildings of Ireland
Eiretrains
Fingal County Council
Geohive