Survey Data
Reg No
40840029
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Technical
Original Use
Building misc
Date
1920 - 1940
Coordinates
226226, 394789
Date Recorded
08/04/2008
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached three-bay single-storey former railway building or possible former customs office/station, erected c. 1930. Later in use as a domestic outbuilding. Now disused. Pitched corrugated-metal roof with exposed rafter ends, and with smooth render chimneystack to the centre. Corrugated-metal clad walls over concrete footings. Square-headed window openings with timber sills, and timber casement window frames; now boarded. Square-headed window opening to the west gable end having multi-pane timber casement window. Square-headed door opening with timber battened door. Square-headed carriage-arch to the east elevation, added c. 1970, having battened timber double-doors. Located adjacent to the former Castlefinn Railway Station, and to the south/south-west of the centre of Castlefinn.
Appraisal
This simple and utilitarian early-to-mid twentieth-century dwelling retains much of its original character and form despite being no longer in use. Its location adjacent to the former Castlefinn Railway Station, the Strabane to Stranorlar railway line, and the border with Northern Ireland, suggests that this building may have been originally built as a customs station or post. It is similar in form to a number of surviving customs stations in Donegal, including a corrugated-metal clad building in Pettigoe (see 40850012). It is notable for the use of corrugated-metal sheeting for both cladding the walls and as a roofing material, a feature of a number of quasi-vernacular structures built in Donegal during the twentieth century. It was probably initially built as a temporary structure, hence the use of an economical material such as corrugated-metal. County Donegal is known for the high use and survival of corrugated-metal as a building material, and this structure forms part of a group of structures built with this material the in county. If a former customs post, then this unassuming structure represents an interesting historical and social relic of the recent past when it would have been used as a base for customs officers to monitor and collect duties on goods being brought into the Irish Republic by railway from Northern Ireland to the east. It maybe one of the fifteen to seventeen (varied over time) officially designated border crossings with associated customs stations that were established following the financial/economic partition of the Republic and Northern Ireland in 1923, and it acts a simple reminder of this era of Ireland's history. This structure is a modest element of the built heritage of the local area, and, if an former customs station, an integral element of the social history of Castlefinn and indeed the wider area.