Helen's Bay railway station serves

Helen's Bay Helen's Bay is a village on the northern coast of County Down, Northern Ireland. It is within the townland of Ballygrot (), between Holywood, Crawfordsburn and Bangor. It is served by a railway station and had a population of 1,390 in the 201 ...

in the

townland A townland ( ga, baile fearainn; Ulster-Scots: ''toonlann'') is a small geographical division of land, historically and currently used in Ireland and in the Western Isles in Scotland, typically covering . The townland system is of Gaelic orig ...

of Ballygrot,

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 531,665. It borders County Antrim to th ...

, Northern Ireland. The station in the grand Scottish Baronial style, built in 1863, was the creation of

Lord Dufferin Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava (21 June 182612 February 1902) was a British public servant and prominent member of Victorian society. In his youth he was a popular figure in the court of Queen Vict ...

, through whose land the line was laid. His family had their own private entrance and waiting room. The architect was

Benjamin Ferrey Benjamin Ferrey FSA FRIBA (1 April 1810–22 August 1880) was an English architect who worked mostly in the Gothic Revival. Family Benjamin Ferrey was the youngest son of Benjamin Ferrey Snr (1779–1847), a draper who became Mayor of Christc ...

. The next station on the line towards Bangor used to be

Crawfordsburn Crawfordsburn () is a small village in County Down, Northern Ireland. The village, which is now effectively a commuter suburb, lies between Holywood and Bangor to the north of the A2 road, about 4 km west of Bangor town centre. Bounded ...

, but this was closed in 1997.

Service

Mondays to Saturdays there is a half-hourly westbound service to , , , Belfast Great Victoria Street, , or in one direction, and a half-hourly eastbound service to and in the other. Extra services operate at peak times, and the service reduces to hourly operation in the evenings. Certain peak-time express trains will pass through Helen's Bay station without stopping. On Sundays there is an hourly service in each direction.

References

Bibliography

William Alan McCutcheon, ''The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland'', (Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland 1980)
Railway stations in County Down Scottish baronial architecture Railway stations opened in 1865 Railway stations served by NI Railways Grade A listed buildings {{NorthernIreland-railstation-stub