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

An asymmetrical two-storey red-brick former house built around 1930 in the Domestic-Revival style, now serving as a police station. It occupies a prominent corner site at the junction of Coleraine Road and Crocknamack Road, south of Portrush town centre, in a residential area overlooking open grassland to the north.

The building was constructed by Daniel McGrath, a local butcher, and was originally known as 'Ruabon'. Period valuation records from the early 1930s describe it as a substantially built house costing £3,000, with generous accommodation comprising a parquet-floored hall with cloakroom and WC, a lounge, three reception rooms, five bedrooms with washhand basins, a maid's bedroom, boxroom, kitchen, scullery, pantry, bathroom and WC. The house featured family stairs to the front and service stairs to the rear. Outbuildings included a washhouse, coalhouse, WC and a garage with a boxroom over. The property was first recorded on the fourth edition Ordnance Survey map dating from 1922-31 and was valued at £65 in 1931.

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-roof extension to the rear. The east block has two-storey canted bay windows to the north and west.

The roof is hipped with Westmoreland slate covering and rounded terracotta ridge tiles. Tall red-brick chimneystacks have decorative clustering. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods sit on overhanging timber eaves; guttering on dentilled stone eaves serves the bow bay window at the north. The walling is stretcher-bonded red brick of various shades with stone dressings.

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 to the left and a two-storey canted bay to the right. It is lit by a three-light window at first-floor level and a bipartite mullioned window at ground floor. The ground floor is surmounted by a modern timber canopy beneath an attached metal PSNI emblem. A replacement timber-panelled entrance door with stone lintel stands 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 appears above a seven-light first-floor window. The far left bay is slightly set back and lit at each floor by a three-light window.

Stone mullioned windows at first-floor level and transom-and-mullioned windows at ground-floor level throughout feature blocked stone surrounds with moulded and chamfered reveals and oblique sills. All windows now have replacement security glazing. Security windows to the rear are set in plain brick reveals with projecting stone sills, some with red-brick voussoirs.

The east elevation is fully abutted by the modern extension. The south (rear) elevation comprises a projecting bay at the left; a hipped slated roof over a ground-floor boiler house is pierced by a projecting chimneybreast above. At first floor to the 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 level by the single-storey flat-roof extension, flush with the left bay, and lit to 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 was converted for use as a police station around 1960, resulting in alterations and refurbishments including the extensions and replacement windows. Although it retains some historic detailing typical of the interwar period, it is not considered to be of special architectural or historic interest.

The property is prominently sited and set back from the road with a tarmacadamed parking area to the front and west. An enclosed yard lies to the rear. The site is surrounded by high metal security fencing and bounded to the north and west by a low rubblestone wall.