18 Ann Street, Ballycastle, Co Antrim, BT54 6AD

A three-bay, two-and-a-half storey building with shopfront, probably dating to the mid 19th century. The building is sited within Ballycastle conservation area.

The shopfront occupies the full width of the building and is of modern style executed in good materials. It comprises an off-centre glazed shop door with unequal display windows on either side, all framed in coloured aluminium sections that extend almost to footwalk level. Above the shopfront is housing for an awning, and the whole is surrounded by polished red granite facings rising to the underside of the first floor window cills. Bold lettering is mounted on the granite. The shopfront design does not accord with the traditional shopfronts characteristic of the conservation area.

At first floor level are three two-pane windows, with the upper panes top-hung and decorative guards on the cills for window boxes. The wall above the granite is smooth rendered and painted. A half-round gutter and shared downpipe drain to a natural slated roof with red ridge tiles. Three Velux-type windows are set into the roof.

Historical evidence suggests the building dates to around 1834 or shortly after, based on valuation records and references in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1835, which mentioned 127 two-storey houses in the area. A first valuation from December 1834 records a house of similar dimensions on this site, and later valuations indicate the property remained substantially unchanged until the 1980s.

The 1973 survey recorded it as a two-storey, three-bay rendered building with a traditional shopfront featuring six-pane shop windows, an entrance surmounted by a two-pane fanlight, sashed upper windows with vertical divisions, and scrolled open-ended brackets projecting over the pavement. In 1970 it was occupied by Irish Home Industries.

When the current owner acquired the property in 1983, the roof was reslated and the shop was converted to a retail butcher. During this process, the historic façade was removed and much of the interior altered. Work was initially carried out without consent. Following consultation with the Department, agreement was reached on some details to be executed in a traditional manner, though this was not fully implemented. Enforcement action was considered but not pursued. The modern shopfront represents a significant departure from the building's original character and the conservation area's established character.