Police Station, Coleraine Road, Portrush, Co. Antrim, BT56 8HA

Police Station, Coleraine Road, Portrush

An asymmetrical two-storey four-bay red brick building in Domestic-Revival style, built around 1930 and converted for use as a police station around 1960. It is corner-sited at the junction of Coleraine Road and Crocknamack Road in a residential area south of Portrush town centre.

The plan comprises two adjoining rectangular blocks, with the east block slightly set back. The west block features a projecting gabled bay to the north with a single-storey bow window, a full-height red-brick extension (added later) to the west, and a single-storey flat-roofed extension to the rear. The east block has two-storey canted bay windows to the north and west.

The roof is hipped Westmoreland slate with rounded terracotta ridge tiles. Tall red-brick chimneystacks with decorative clustering rise prominently. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods are mounted on overhanging timber eaves; dentilled stone eaves with guttering serve the bow bay window at the north.

The walling is stretcher-bonded red brick of various shades with stone dressings. Stone mullioned windows at first floor and transom-and-mullioned windows at ground floor are fitted with replacement security glazing, all having blocked stone surrounds with moulded and chamfered reveals and oblique sills. Rear security windows sit in plain brick reveals with projecting stone sills, some featuring red-brick voussoirs.

The principal elevation faces north and is irregularly arranged. A later extension to the far left is slightly set back and similarly styled to the main building. The entrance bay sits right of centre, framed by a gabled bay at left and a two-storey canted bay at right. It is lit by a three-light window at first floor and a bipartite mullioned window at ground floor. A modern timber canopy beneath an attached metal PSNI emblem shelters the ground floor, with a replacement timber-panelled entrance door and stone lintel to the right, accessed via a modern concrete ramp with metal handrail. The gabled left bay has a three-light window over a five-light bow bay. The canted right bay rises to a brick parapet breaking the eaves line, with stone coping rising to a point and topped by a small stone finial; a lozenge-shaped stone detail sits above the seven-light first-floor window. The far left bay is slightly set back and lit at each floor by a three-light window.

The east elevation is fully abutted by the modern extension. The south (rear) elevation comprises a projecting bay at the left with a hipped slated roof over a ground-floor boiler house, pierced by a projecting chimneybreast. To the first floor right is a window and a large three-light transom-and-mullioned stairwell window with replacement leaded-and-stained glass panels. The right bay is abutted at ground floor by the single-storey flat-roofed extension, flush with the left bay, and lit at first floor by five windows. The west elevation comprises a gabled bay to the right with a two-storey canted bay having seven-light windows at each floor. The left bay has a three-light window at first floor and a four-light window at ground floor.

The building is prominently sited on the corner overlooking open grassland to the north. It is set back from the road with a tarmacadamed parking area to the front and west, and an enclosed yard to the rear. The site is surrounded by high metal security fencing and bounded to the north and west by a low rubblestone wall.