MacBride Railway Station, Dublin Road, Drogheda, Co. Louth

What catches the eye first, though, is the colour: a brownish yellow brick laid in Flemish bond, where headers and stretchers alternate along each course, paired with stone dressings crisp enough to suggest the masons took particular pride in this commission. The result is a small, tightly composed building that rewards a second look rather than a passing glance from a train window.

The station takes a symmetrical, five-bay form, with a central stone portico of three bays projecting from the south front and flanked by matching brick pavilions, a layout that gives the whole building a settled, formal quality despite its modest scale. Round-headed windows and doors throughout carry stepped brick reveals and arches, their painted timber sashes and doors detailed with margined glazing and overlights above stone transoms. On the platforms, circular cast-iron columns rise to decorative capitals that carry quadrant brackets and wrought-iron lattice beams supporting lean-to canopy roofs, one of which incorporates a timber waiting room with quadrant-headed lights over diagonal timber sheeting. A cast-iron balustrade with pointed arch openings runs along the south platform between the columns, and a postbox bearing Queen Victoria's cipher survives on site, a small but tangible marker of the station's Victorian origins. Later additions and repairs, including uPVC guttering on the east extension, have been fitted in without overwhelming the original brick and stonework, so the nineteenth century reading of the building remains largely intact.

The station stands to the south-west of Drogheda, among other railway buildings strung along the line to east and west, and its interest lies as much in the small details as the overall composition: the stone corbelled caps on the brick chimneystacks, the moulded cast-iron gutters sitting on a stone eaves corbel course, the dentilled cornice on the waiting room. Anyone pausing on the platform rather than hurrying through has the chance to notice how much of the original ironwork, brickwork and joinery has simply been left to do its job for over a hundred and sixty years.