Float Railway Station

Detached three-bay two-storey former railway station, built 1856, with single-storey box bay window to south elevation and a single-storey lean-to extension enclosed within walled yard to the rear (east). Later is use as a private house and now unoccupied. Hipped natural slate roof with overhanging eaves, clay ridge tiles, cast-iron rainwater goods and a single rendered chimneystack, aligned behind roof ridge, having terracotta chimneypots over. Constructed of coursed rubble limestone with flush dressed limestone quoins to corners and brick dressings to openings. Square-headed window openings with two-over-two pane timber sliding sash windows and cut stone sills. Paired one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows to box bay window (south). Central segmental-headed doorcase to west façade (overlooking former platform) having glazed timber door, plain overlight and a gabled canopy porch over. Former railway platforms to the west, either side of former railway line having rubble limestone constructed with dressed limestone coping over. Rubble limestone screen walls to either side of front elevation having square-headed openings. Remains of former goods shed to the north.

An attractive small-scale Victorian railway station, which retains its early form, character and fabric. It is very well-built in local limestone while the red brick surrounds to the openings help to create a pleasant visual statement in the landscape to the east of Lismacaffrey. This railway station was built by The Midland and Great Western Railway Company to serve the Inny Junction to Cavan Line, which opened in 1856, closed to passenger traffic in 1947 and was subsequently completely closed by CIE in 1960. Float Station was built to designs by George Wilkinson (1814-1890), a noted architect of his day, who also completed the designs for a number of other railway stations for The Midland and Great Western Railway Company (on the Mullingar to Longford and the Inny Junction to Cavan lines) at this time. This appealing small-scale railway station forms the centrepiece of an interesting collection of railway-related structures including the railway platforms and the remains of the goods shed to the north. It forms part of the industrial heritage of Westmeath and is an interesting historical reminder of great age of railway construction during the mid-to-late nineteenth-century.