31-33 Castle Street, Ballycastle, County Antrim, BT54 6AS

31–33 Castle Street, Ballycastle

This is a two-storey terraced house with shop on the south side of Castle Street, to the west of Ballycastle town centre, originally comprising two separate properties. The eastern portion dates from around 1740, most likely as part of Hugh Boyd's development of Ballycastle during that decade, while the western portion is thought to date from around 1780. The two were eventually amalgamated and the building now presents as a single entity, finished in pebbledash render with a late Victorian or Edwardian shopfront to the front elevation.

The asymmetrical north-facing front elevation reads, from right to left, as follows. At the far right is the house entrance: a large flat-arched opening containing a recessed glazed door with sidelight, added in the 1960s or 1970s. Immediately to its left is a large picture window with a modern uPVC frame. A modern plaster shop signboard spans above this window and the doorway. To the left of the house window is the shopfront, which consists of a large display window and an adjacent doorway framed by simple timber pilasters, with a timber signboard above and a moulded cornice with decorative end brackets. The shop window itself has a recent nine-pane timber frame, and the shop doorway has a modern glazed door. At the far left is a segmental-arched carriage entrance with a smooth render surround and a moulded keystone.

At first-floor level there are seven flat-arched windows of uniform size. The three to the left are evenly spaced among themselves, as are the four to the right. All have moulded surrounds with keystones, probably added in the early 1900s. The three left-hand windows retain hornless Georgian-paned sash frames with a 6-over-6 pane arrangement, while the four right-hand windows have horned sash frames with plate glass (1-over-1). The elevation is finished in pebbledash with painted moulded quoins and a painted smooth render base course. A recently added projecting street light is fixed at first-floor level to the far right (west).

Only small sections of the east and west gable ends are exposed, both finished in unpainted cement render and without openings.

To the rear, the western side of the back elevation is dominated by a large two-storey return with a single-pitch lean-to roof that abuts the return of the neighbouring property. The current owner states that his father added this return in 1963, though the evidence suggests it may have been an earlier structure that was raised in height and modernised at that time, hence the single-pitch roof. Attached to the south end of this return is a large one-and-a-half-storey outbuilding, which in turn abuts the tall north wall of a now roofless and largely ruinous outbuilding to its south. Roughly in the centre of the rear elevation is a smaller single-storey gabled return with a small gabled shed extension to its south end.

The east face of the large two-storey return has two large picture windows at ground-floor level with modern timber frames, with a doorway fitted with a modern timber-and-glazed door between them. At first-floor level there is a large window similar to those below, with a smaller modern-framed window to its right; between these two, a further small window has been blocked up in breeze block. This return is finished in painted roughcast.

The large gabled outbuilding at the south end of the return has, reading from left to right on its east face: a tall open doorway, a normal-height pedestrian doorway with a timber sheeted door, a small two-pane timber-framed window, another pedestrian doorway of the same type, and a larger four-pane timber-framed window.

The smaller single-storey return has a former window to its east face that has been blocked in brick of early to mid 19th-century appearance. It is mainly finished in unpainted cement render. The small gabled shed extension at its south end has a bevelled south-east corner to allow vehicles to pass, and is finished in painted cement render. The south face of this shed has a doorway with a relatively recent timber sheeted door (the formerly glazed panel of which has been boarded over) and a metal-framed window. There is a smaller fixed timber-framed window to the east face.

On the rear face of the main building there is a large modern-timber-framed window to the left at first-floor level. Towards the centre-right, just above the smaller extension, is a relatively small window that has been boarded up; just to its right, and set at a slightly lower level, is a similarly sized window with a hornless timber sash frame with plate glass. At ground-floor level at the far right is the rear end of the carriage entrance. This elevation is largely finished in unpainted cement render.

The main roof is gabled and slated, with a small skylight to the rear slope and two rendered chimneystacks at the gable ends. The roof covering of the larger return could not be inspected. The smaller return has a slated gabled roof; the outbuilding roof is slated on the east slope, with some slates now missing, and covered in corrugated metal to the west. The small shed extension has a corrugated asbestos roof. Rainwater goods are cast iron to the front and uPVC to the rear.

The building retains a surviving portion of the original staircase belonging to the formerly separate eastern property, which appears to be mid 18th century in character, consistent with a date in Hugh Boyd's circa 1740s development of Ballycastle. The age of the western half is harder to establish, as most of its original detailing was removed in the later 20th century, though its greater number of first-floor windows suggests it is later than its neighbour. The surviving historical records support a date of around 1780.

The property appears in the valuation records from 1 January 1835, at which point it comprised two separate houses. The eastern property was occupied by a William Moore and included, in addition to the main house measuring 13½ by 23½ feet with a ceiling height of 14½ feet, a gateway measuring 7½ by 23½ feet (6 feet high), a rear return of 12 by 15½ feet (7½ feet high), stables of 38½ by 16 feet (11½ feet high), a barn and stable of 9½ by 26 feet (12½ feet high), and a thatched forge of 23 by 26 feet (8 feet high). The western dwelling was occupied by a Matthew Moore, listed as a saddle and harness maker in Pigot's 1824 Directory and presumably a relative, with the house measuring 24½ by 23½ feet (19 feet high) and a rear byre of 11½ by 26 feet (12½ feet high). The valuers considered the eastern house the older of the two. The second valuation of 1859 records the eastern house as two storeys and its western neighbour as two and a half storeys; subsequent valuations suggest no significant change in external height after this date, and the discrepancy is thought to reflect how the internal space was used and valued rather than any actual difference in the height of the external walls.

By 1859, William Moore (listed as a saddle-maker in Slater's 1856 Directory) was leasing both properties from the Boyd estate. By that stage, a two-storey return measuring 5 yards by 5 and a two-storey outbuilding of 4 yards by 9 had been added to the rear of the western property, and the thatched forge of the eastern property had apparently been replaced by a single-storey slated shed measuring 7 yards by 3. The western house was described as containing a shop, two small rooms, two rooms above, garrets, and a return.

From at least 1864 to 1890 the western property was sublet by William Moore (or a relation) to an Anne Murphy, followed by Robert Stewart (1891–99) and Samuel McCormick (1899–1913). The eastern property was occupied by Moore himself until 1890, then sublet to Stewart McBride (1890–92), and then by Moore again until 1898. The building was vacant in 1904, when it was sublet to David Barr, who was succeeded by Daniel Stewart in 1908; between 1910 and 1915 it alternated between a Daniel and a William Brown. In 1916, both houses were recorded as occupied by William Jamison and valued as a single entity.

William Moore was succeeded as leaseholder in 1920 by the Trustees of Ballycastle Presbyterian Church, who in turn were succeeded by Adam Todd in 1925. A small hand-drawn plan in the valuers' office notebook from around this time shows the property already included most of the component parts visible today, with the exception of the small shed to the rear of the smaller return, and with an additional single-storey outbuilding at the south-east corner of the yard that is no longer present.

The building continued to be valued as a single property until 1935, when it was split again with Joseph Starrs occupying the eastern section, by then numbered 31 Castle Street. By 1940 Adam Todd had resumed the tenancy of both, but the following year the western section (no. 31) was sublet to William Smyth, who acquired the lease of both properties in 1951, subletting no. 31 to Thomas O'Brien in 1951 and no. 33 to John Graham in 1955. In 1963 the entire block was acquired by the present owner's father, who remodelled the front ground-floor openings and the interior of the former no. 31, and who also remodelled the rear return, raising the roof level in the process.

The building sits within a conservation area.