Survey Data
Reg No
14926001
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Original Use
Railway station
Date
1850 - 1860
Coordinates
243290, 218330
Date Recorded
12/10/2004
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached Tudor style L-plan two-storey former railway station, station master's house and ticket office, built c.1856, with recessed entrance porch to front elevation and single-storey gable-fronted bays to north-west. Pitched slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles, limestone chimneystacks and coping and decorative fleur-de-lis saddlestones to gabled elevations. Profiled cast-iron rainwater goods. Ashlar limestone walls. Chamfered limestone window surrounds with pointed-arched and square-headed window openings with timber sash windows. Pointed-arched door opening to station master's house with chamfered limestone surround with hoodmoulding. Accessed up limestone steps.
Appraisal
Geashill Station opened in 1856 and serviced the estate village of Geashill and surrounding areas. Geashill station is located on the Portarlington to Tullamore section of the Athlone Branch of the Great Southern and Western Railway. This once busy station ceased to operate public passenger services in 1963 and continued to transport goods, mostly cattle, until 1979. Indeed so busy was the station transporting cattle that approximately 50 wagons of cattle would be transported from here every day and special cattle pens were constructed to accommodate them. This structure is a combined station master's house and ticket office. The largest structure on the site, it was central to the running of the station. The veranda to the front of the building was a waiting area outside the ticket office. The decorative motifs and architectural styling is typical of the nineteenth-century Gothic Revival style. Elements such as the fleur-de-lis saddlebacks, steeply pitched roof, tall ashlar chimneystacks and paired lancet windows within limestone surrounds all evoke the Gothic style and contribute to the architectural and artistic significance of the structure. The warehouse, cottage and this combined station master's house and ticket office together form an important group of related structures. As a once vital part of the historic infrastructure of the area, it is of social significance.