38 Kerr Street, Portrush, Co. Antrim, BT56 8DQ

38 Kerr Street is a mid-Victorian two-bay three-storey terraced townhouse with attic, built around 1860 and positioned on the east side of Kerr Street overlooking Portrush harbour. It forms part of a terrace of three houses, one of the earliest surviving examples of Victorian waterfront development in the town, and makes an important contribution to the historic character of Portrush.

The house is rendered roughcast with smooth rendered straight quoins and an eaves band featuring a moulded cornice. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with angled ridge tiles and includes a rendered chimneystack to the north gable; cast-iron half-round rainwater goods run to the rear. Windows are replacement timber sash without horns, set in smooth surrounds with projecting stone sills and surmounted by label moulds. The principal elevation faces west and is three openings wide at each floor. The entrance door, positioned to the left, is bolection-moulded with four panels and is accessed by three granite steps. It is surmounted by a plain transom light and flanked by panelled pilasters with a corniced canopy supported on decorative console brackets. The north elevation is abutted by the adjoining building. The east elevation contains a skylight to the roof and two windows at second floor level. A two-storey return projects to the rear with two windows to each floor at the left cheek, abutted by a gabled extension of lower height and similar style. The south gable is abutted by the adjoining building. The setting includes decorative cast-iron arrow-head railings on a stone plinth wall enclosing concrete slab paving to the front. A row of two-storey rendered outbuildings runs to the rear of the terrace, servicing each of the three houses. These outbuildings have slated roofs with terracotta ridge tiles and rendered chimneystack with terracotta pot to number 38. The east elevation of the outbuilding features two widely-spaced 6/6 timber sash windows with horns and projecting painted sills at first floor, with two timber-sheeted doors and a timber casement window at ground floor. The north gable of the outbuilding abuts a rubblestone boundary wall.

The terrace was built in 1859–60 during Portrush's dramatic expansion as a fashionable bathing resort following the arrival of a railway branch line from Coleraine in 1855. Initially named Clarence Terrace, the group first appeared in valuation records as unfinished dwellings in 1859. The valuer described the houses as new, "well built and tolerably well finished". They were built by Thomas Black; numbers 37 and 38 were valued at £30 each, while number 36 was valued at £31 due to its slightly larger size. By 1863 all houses had acquired tenants. In the 1870s the terrace was renamed Charlotte Terrace. The first recorded occupier of number 38 was James Watt, followed by Mrs Murray (1873), W G Henderson (1876), Miss Devonport (1878), Mrs Dickson (1886), James Orr Jackson (1888), Alexander Orr Jackson (1891), and Edward Campbell (1896). The Campbell family remained resident for some years until the house was taken over by Nora Currie in the 1930s. William Magee purchased the house for £710 in 1944. The following year he converted the rear outbuildings into bedrooms, raising the valuation to £57. Valuer's notes from the 1930s listed the accommodation as three reception rooms, nine bedrooms, kitchen, scullery, pantry and WC. The building was listed in 1977 and in 1986 was converted into four flats with associated internal works and renovations to the chimneys and roof. The building was undergoing restoration work as of 2012.