Boathouse, The Harbour, Harbour Road, Ballintoy, Ballycastle, Co Antrim BT54

Boathouse, The Harbour, Harbour Road, Ballintoy

This early 1870s Coastguard boathouse stands at the north-east end of Ballintoy's inner harbour, a utilitarian structure typical of such maritime buildings. It survives as a single-storey, single-bay building aligned north-west to south-east, with its front gable facing the sea.

The external walls are constructed from quarried limestone rubble brought to courses, with dressed sandstone quoins. The pitched roof has been replaced with artificial slate and carries dressed sandstone verges but no rainwater goods; a modern metal flue projects from the north-east pitch. Patress plates tie the front eaves of the side walls together. The limestone rubble foundations rise up the slope in horizontal bedding.

Both side walls contain central window openings with voussoired sandstone heads of segmental profile, brick jambs, and sandstone cills. These openings are now fitted with modern timber shutters and casement windows behind. Originally they were fitted with shutters with metal security bars to the front and no glazing. The north-west gable has a large replacement double-leaf tongue-and-groove door set in a wide segmental-headed opening trimmed with sandstone with a single course of brick above the head. Behind this stands a modern double-leaf, semi-glazed timber door with sidelights. The south-east gable, cut into the steep slope, has a brick-trimmed door at its right-hand end.

Internally, several original features survive: the mezzanine platform, a dismantled winch, and shelving brackets. A line of dressed stone flags along the cill of the doorway preserves the only trace of the original slipway that once extended to the water's edge but was removed in the late 1970s. Access to the water is now via two short flights of concrete steps.

The boathouse was originally accessed from further up the road by a steep flight of stone steps down to its back door, shown on the 1905 Ordnance Survey map but long since collapsed, with only vestiges surviving at its top end. It is now approached via a track from the road dating from the later 1900s.

The building's history is closely tied to the Coastguard establishment at Ballintoy. A Coastguard station was first established by the Board of Customs in 1822. The 1832 Ordnance Survey map shows a flag staff at the top of the cliff, though there was no staff accommodation; men were billeted in the village. By 1855, a watch house had been built beside the flag staff, and a boat house on the beach above a natural inlet (where a public shelter now stands). In 1856, responsibility for the Coastguard transferred to the Admiralty Board. In 1872–73, the present terrace of Coastguard houses was built just south of the earlier watch house. By this time, the harbour itself existed, having been privately built in 1860 for the export of limestone, lime, and basalt setts. The present boathouse is first shown on a plan dated 28 March 1871 as "proposed boathouse" and was doubtless completed around the same time as the Coastguard houses, appearing as "boat house" on the 1905 Ordnance Survey map. The Coastguard station was vacated in 1909 and sold off. The boathouse continued in private use and is shown on the 1922 Ordnance Survey map. In later years it was used by a local fisherman to store creels and is currently used as a store for Maritime Heritage artefacts and a base for outdoor education and guided sea kayak expeditions.

Of its original fabric, only the walls and roof rafters survive intact. The replacement artificial slating and modern flue detract somewhat from its appearance, though the front doors and window shutters are in keeping with the original. The replacement casement windows and glazed inner doors are only visible when the shutters are removed and the front doors opened. Although the original slipway is long gone, the house's harbour setting remains intact. It is a very prominent feature of the harbour and has group value with it. It also has a functional association with the nearby Coastguard terrace and is of local historical interest as one of a number of Coastguard sites around the coastline of north-east Antrim.