Balla Railway Station

Detached five-bay single-storey railway station, opened 1862; extant 1894, on a rectangular plan. Closed, 1963. Dismantled, 1989. Now in ruins. Overhanging pitched slate roof now missing with tuck pointed drag edged rock faced cut-limestone chimney stacks having cut-limestone stringcourses below capping. Part creeper- or ivy-covered tuck pointed snecked rock faced limestone walls with drag edged rock faced cut-limestone flush quoins to corners. Square-headed central window openings with cut-limestone sills, and drag edged rock faced cut-limestone surrounds with no fittings surviving. Pseudo three centre-headed flanking door openings with drag edged rock faced cut-limestone block-and-start surrounds. Interior in ruins. Set in unkempt grounds.

The shell of a railway station identified as an integral component of the mid nineteenth-century built heritage of Balla on account of the connections with the development of the Mayo Branch of the Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR) line (opened 1862) by the Great Northern and Western Railway (GNWR) Company. Furthermore, a diagonally opposing signal box (extant 1894; decommissioned 1989) continues to contribute positively to the group and setting values of a neat self-contained ensemble making an increasingly forlorn visual statement in a rural street scene.