Museum opens window on terminal station’s past
ENNISKILLEN’S Headhunters Railway Museum and Barbershop has opened a forgotten window on the past by restoring the stained glass panels that once graced the doors leading from the foyer into the refreshment room at Londonderry Foyle Road station.
Now on display in the volunteerrun museum, the panels date from the opening of the Derry terminal station in 1899 by the Great Northern Railway of Ireland. Two depict the initials of the railway in monogram style.
“They were presented to the museum by Irvine Millar, the former Ulsterbus chief inspector, noted transport author and enthusiast, who rescued them from Foyle Road station when he was working in Derry as area bus manager. This was after the closure of the railway in 1965, and before the station was demolished in 1970,” said the museum’s curator and chairman, Selwyn Johnston.
“He meant to restore them, and never got round to it, so he presented the panels to us.”
Restoration
Headhunters kept the glasswork in storage, and only got round to restoring the leaded panes during the first lockdown in early 2020. Now fully restored and placed on display, they represent examples of very few artefacts from Foyle Road to survive the once bustling terminal station’s demolition.
The museum was also given the sign from the stationmaster’s office, rescued by Irvine at about the same time.
Foyle Road also boasted a complete GNR(I) crest in stained glass, which was displayed above one of the doors in an arch, but it seems that Irvine was unable to rescue this, either because he failed to notice it, or he couldn’t climb high enough to bring it down!
However, a similar crest - thought to have originated at the GNR(I)’s Grosvener Rooms, the company’s silver-service restaurant at Belfast’s Great Victoria Street Station - has survived. Rescued and originally displayed at the former Belfast Museum of Transport, this fine piece of railway glassworking is now on show at the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum at Cultra.
Discovery
“We didn’t know that there was one of these stained glass crests at Foyle Road until railway enthusiast Danny Doherty got in touch with us via Facebook with a picture from the Irish Railway Record Society archives of the crest in situ,” said Selwyn.
“It shows the crest on the Foyle Road arches, which had been forgotten about until Danny looked into it after we appealed for information. That, and the panels which we have now fully restored, show just how keen the GNR(I) was to make a statement with its new station in Derry. We’re proud to display these fine examples.”
Stained glass was used by several Victorian railway companies in station architecture, including the
Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland. One of the best surviving examples of its use in stations is found in the LSWR stained glass window at London’s Waterloo station, depicting, just as the GNR did, the railway’s heraldic coat of arms - the Victorian equivalent of today’s logos.