7 Old Coastguard Cottages, North Street, Ballycastle, Co Antrim, BT54 6BZ

7 Old Coastguard Cottages is one of a terrace of seven residential units that formed part of a former coastguard station built in 1868 as part of the mid-Victorian expansion of coastal defences. The station was designed by E.T. Owen, assistant architect in the Irish Board of Public Works in Dublin, working under the direction of the board's principal architect, his brother J.H. Owen. E.T. Owen had taken over responsibility for designing coastguard stations from J.H. Owen in the mid-1860s. The station originally comprised five houses and a tower. The station was vacated by the coastguard around the 1960s and the buildings subsequently reverted to the Trustees of the Fullerton Estate.

The terrace is accessed by a laneway from North Street and stands freestanding within its grounds, though these have been considerably reduced by later development. The terrace comprises a cottage for the commanding officer and six cottages for other ranks, with an off-centre tower and small outhouses positioned across an entrance street. Opposite each unit is a small enclosed yard with a lean-to roofed store.

No. 7 is a two-storey structure two bays wide. The entrance door is positioned at the gable end, fitted with a small glazed panel and fanlight. To the right of the door is a double hung sliding sash window with twelve panes, with a similar window directly above it on the first floor, though of lesser height. The openings are trimmed with sandstone blocks bonded to the wall. The walls are finished in roughcast and painted, with rusticated quoins at the gable corner. From the gable corner, a painted random rubble wall projects at right angles to join the outhouse, incorporating a pedestrian opening with piers and sandstone coping. A corbel course forms the eave with an attached metal gutter and single downpipe. The roof is slated and hipped, with a grey and yellow chimney stack positioned between No. 6 and No. 7. The gable wall has no openings, is finished in painted roughcast, and has a corbel course with gutter attached but no downpipes. A narrow paved pathway separates the gable and the site boundary.

The south-east elevation features an eight-pane glazed door with a three-pane fanlight, and a double hung sliding sash twelve-pane window with a pier between them. At first floor level, centred above the door and window below, is a two-light double hung sliding sash window with eight panes in each light. All openings are trimmed with block-bonded sandstone and rusticated quoins at the gable corner. The wall is finished in painted roughcast, with a corbel course and gutter; a single downpipe is positioned in the corner of the back return to No. 6. The attached outhouse and yard have been renovated and paved.

The cottages have slated roofs with hips throughout. The central tower is flat-roofed with a high parapet wall.

Despite some alterations to the exterior and alterations to the setting, the building retains considerable architectural and historical interest. Its value is enhanced by its group relationship with the other former coastguard houses within the terrace. The station appears to be of industrial archaeological interest. An earlier coastguard station existed nearer to the sea adjacent to the pier, first appearing on the Ordnance Survey map of 1855; the residences of that station were described in the 1830s as being "without anything in their architecture or appearance worthy of description". The current coastguard station appears for the first time on the Ordnance Survey map of 1904. Historic photographs by W.A. Green dating to around 1900, held by the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, and photographs by W. Lawrence of similar date in the National Library of Ireland, document the station in its original setting and form.