Water Pump, Former Coastguard Cottages, North Street, Ballycastle, Co Antrim

A cast iron water pump with handle, manufactured by D Dell & Co. Belfast, dating from the late 19th century. The top part of the pump casing is missing. The pump features an unusual pointed detail at the top of its handle. It stands in the forecourt area between the terrace of listed coastguard cottages and their outbuildings, positioned next to the yard wall directly opposite cottage number 4.

The pump has group value with the adjacent former Coastguard Cottages, a 2-storey terrace erected in 1868 comprising a cottage for the commanding officer and 6 cottages for ranks, together with an off-centre tower and small outhouses. The tower is flat roofed with a high parapet wall, while the cottage roofs are slated with hips. The terrace is reached by a laneway from North Street and stands within its own grounds, though these have been much reduced by later development. Opposite each residential unit is a small enclosed yard with a lean-to roofed store.

The cottages were built as part of a Coast Guard Station, probably designed by E.T. Owen, assistant architect in the Irish Board of Public Works in Dublin, under the direction of the board's principal architect, his brother J.H. Owen. E.T. Owen appears to have taken over responsibility for the design of coastguard stations from J.H. Owen in the mid-1860s. The original station comprised five houses and a tower. The coastguard station vacated the site around the 1960s, and the buildings subsequently reverted to the Trustees of the Fullerton Estate.

A previous coastguard station had existed closer to the sea, adjacent to the pier, before this location was established. The coastguard station first appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1904; the earlier map of 1855 shows the earlier station, and historical records from the 1830s describe the residences of the officers of that station as "without anything in their architecture or appearance worthy of description".

The pump is of industrial archaeological interest and is recorded as derelict.