2 Old Coastguard Cottages, Portballintrae, Bushmills, Co. Antrim, BT57 8RF

2 Old Coastguard Cottages is a mid-terrace, two-storey, two-bay rendered cottage built in 1874 as the middle unit of a terrace of three, forming part of Portballintrae's Coastguard Station on the east side of the bay. It is a relatively rare surviving example of its type and makes a significant contribution to the architectural and maritime heritage of the area.

The cottage has a rectangular plan with a single-storey slated enclosed verandah to the front and a two-storey projection to the rear. The roof is a pitched natural slate finish with blue-black angled ridge tiles, and the rear projection has a hipped slate roof. The rendered chimneystack has a sandstone cap. Rainwater goods are plastic, carried on overhanging eaves with exposed rafter tails. External walls are painted roughcast render throughout.

Windows are 1/1 timber-framed sash with horns: segmental-headed at first-floor level and square-headed at ground-floor level unless otherwise noted, all with flush painted sills. Windows to the rear projection sit within moulded architraves with painted sills. The verandah has three-light timber casement windows.

The principal elevation faces northwest and is almost symmetrically arranged, with two windows at first-floor level above the full-width lean-to verandah. A panelled-and-glazed timber door, positioned left of centre, is accessed by a single red sandstone step. The northeast elevation abuts the adjoining cottage to the northeast. The southeast elevation, which serves as the entrance front, has a two-storey projection to the centre flanked by a square-headed window at ground and first-floor level to both the left and right bays. The projection has two windows at first-floor level above two diminutive 1/1 windows and a three-panelled glazed timber door at the right. The southwest elevation abuts the adjoining cottage to the southwest.

The cottage sits overlooking the bay of Portballintrae, between Beach Road and Lisanduff Avenue. To the front is a large lawned garden with gravel paths leading to the entrance doors; the garden is bounded to the road by a roughcast cement-rendered wall with saddleback coping, with a modern steel latch-gate opening onto Beach Road. The southwest boundary is formed by a modern timber fence with a timber gate. A gravel driveway to the southwest leads to the rear yard, which is accessed through a whitewashed wall with soldier coping and square rendered piers with undressed stone caps supporting an original wrought-iron gate. To the rear there are former toilet blocks of rock-faced blackstone with slated lean-to roofs, sandstone quoins, and red-brick surrounds to timber-sheeted doors. The rear boundary is an undressed blackstone wall.

The Coastguard Station at Portballintrae was constructed around 1875 and first appeared in the Annual Revisions in 1876, at which point it was recorded as a single building valued at £40 and leased from Sir Francis MacNaughten of Dunderave House, Bushmills. The station does not appear on Ordnance Survey mapping until the third edition of 1904, which depicted the row as an oblong-shaped building captioned "Coastguard Station" and confirmed that the blackstone toilet block outbuildings to the rear had already been constructed by that date. The value of the station was slightly reduced to £39 10s. in 1896, the only recorded change until the station was sold by the Admiralty in 1912.

Originally the station comprised the square watchtower and five small dwellings for coastguards and their families. The 1901 Census recorded the station as occupied by five coastguards and their families, describing it as a first-class structure. The station officer, Mr Henry C. Cross (aged 50, Church of Ireland), occupied the largest dwelling, now No. 3 Coastguard Cottages, while the boatmen lived in the smaller equal-sized dwellings. No. 2 Coastguard Cottages was formed from the middle two of those smaller dwellings; in 1901 these were occupied respectively by William Faro and James Summers, each with their families, and each dwelling consisted of four inhabited rooms.

Following the sale by the Admiralty in 1912, the row was purchased by a Mr James McNeill in 1914, at which point the valuation was subdivided to reflect the five separate dwellings. The total value remained at £39 10s.; the watchtower was valued at £5, the station officer's residence at £8 10s., and each of the four boatmen's dwellings at £6 10s. One of the two central dwellings that later formed No. 2 was vacant in 1914 while the other was occupied by a Major Montgomery. After 1920, no occupants were recorded and only the lessor, Margaret McMullan, who came into ownership in 1919, was noted. The Annual Revisions were cancelled in 1923 with no further changes recorded.

Early 20th-century photographs confirm that the enclosed verandah was a later addition, most likely added after the terrace was sold by the Admiralty in 1912. In 1972, W. Girvan described the station as: "A terrace of six [sic] coastguard houses … the eastern end houses a three-storey tower, capped by a steeply pitched roof; above the arrow-slit windows of the ground floor is an oriel-bartizan, complete with machicolations (for pouring oil on troubled waters?), a feature repeated on the west end. Each house has a lean-to verandah. The whole is harled." Girvan noted that the station had fallen derelict by 1972, and the first survey image of 1975 confirmed it lay vacant and in a state of disrepair, with broken windows and the verandah sealed with rusted shutters. The station was listed in 1977 and subsequently underwent renovation in the late 20th century, during which the five original boatmen's dwellings were converted into three modern cottages. The interiors have been modernised, but the external façade has been sympathetically restored and, together with the conversion of the blackstone toilet blocks into outbuildings, the original character of the Victorian Coastguard Station has been largely maintained.

A small fishing village on the North Antrim coast, Portballintrae was identified as a strategically suitable location for a coastguard station owing to the safety afforded by its horseshoe-shaped bay and sheltered fishing harbour. A number of smaller rubble coastguard buildings predated the current station, which was erected around 1875.