2 Cliff Terrace, Castlerock, Co. Londonderry, BT51 4RQ

2 Cliff Terrace, Castlerock

A terraced single-bay one-and-a-half-storey stone former labourer's cottage, built around 1875 as one of twelve cottages designed by architect Frederick Henry Godwin for Sir William Harvey Bruce. The building is rectangular on plan and faces north. It was extensively renovated and extended to the rear around 2009.

The cottage retains distinctive original architectural features despite internal alterations. It has a steeply pitched natural slate roof with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles. A tall rendered chimneystack to the west is shared with the adjoining house. Two dormer windows puncture the front roof pitch (the eastern one shared with the adjoining cottage), each with a hipped slate roof, timber pinnacles and replacement hardwood casement windows.

The walls are constructed from random coursed rock-faced basalt with tooled sandstone ashlar dressings and cement pointing. The eaves are deeply overhanging, with exposed timber beams supported by two stop-chamfered timber brackets resting on sandstone corbels. Ogee-moulded cast-iron guttering is supported on a timber fascia.

The front elevation contains a single square-headed window opening with stop-chamfered dressed sandstone surround and sandstone sill, fitted with replacement hardwood windows. A segmental-headed recessed entrance porch with stop-chamfered dressed sandstone surround and keystone provides access. The porch has a clay tiled floor and a large worn sandstone step opening onto a slightly raised area laid in cobbles that runs the entire length of the terrace. A square-headed door opening, now blocked, formerly provided shared access with the adjacent cottage.

The rear elevation has been extensively modified by a two-storey gable-ended extension and a further flat-roofed single-storey extension, both built around 2009. The east and west elevations are abutted by adjoining cottages.

Originally built as part of a terrace of twelve similar houses on an elevated site overlooking the sea west of Castlerock, locally known as the 'Twelve Apostles', this cottage is set street-front with a paved rear patio and garden.

Historical Context

The twelve cottages, first recorded on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1906, were constructed around 1875 and are described as 'recently erected' in the Irish Builder of February 1882, though they appear to have been built some years earlier. They are entered into the valuation fieldbook between 1873 and 1878, when all houses were inhabited and valued at £2 5s. The terrace was built for estate workers, though not exclusively employed by the Hervey Bruce family.

Architect Frederick Henry Godwin, nephew of the better-known Edward William Godwin, is little documented, with only three local structures attributed to him. This terrace represents his final recorded work before moving to England around 1890, where he is thought to have designed additions to Westburton House in Gloucestershire. Commentators have observed the terrace as 'an English design in an Irish setting'.

The stone used was local basalt with freestone dressings to doors and windows. According to contemporary plans published in the Irish Builder, each cottage originally comprised a single room on the ground floor, a washhouse or scullery to the rear, and a staircase leading to the upper floor, which was partitioned to form two bedrooms. These compact cottages, often accommodating large families, were let by the Hervey Bruce estate at modest rents. By 1887, the valuation had dropped to £1 10s, with rent recorded at 10 pence per week. At the 1901 census, all houses were designated second class three-room dwellings. The first recorded tenant of number two was Eliza Finlay, followed by John McClement, a farm labourer, and later William Ross. In the early 1930s, the buildings remained largely as originally constructed, with a separate single-storey washhouse in the rear yard and water supply carried from a pump. Rents at that time ranged from 6s to 8s 8d per month.

Since the 1960s and 1970s, most cottages in the terrace have been extended to the rear and refurbished internally. Despite these alterations and the loss of most original interior fabric, the building retains its distinctive architectural character and contributes significantly to the late nineteenth-century character of Castlerock.