7 Cliff Terrace, Castlerock, Co. Londonderry, BT51 4RQ

7 Cliff Terrace is a terraced single-bay one-and-a-half-storey stone cottage built around 1875 as one of twelve identical houses. The terrace was built for Sir William Harvey Bruce, third baronet of Downhill, to designs by architect Frederick Henry Godwin. Known locally as the 'Twelve Apostles', the terrace first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1906, though construction dates from circa 1875. The Irish Builder described the terrace as "recently erected" in February 1882. Godwin, a nephew of the better-known Edward William Godwin, is little known, with only three local structures attributed to him before he moved to England around 1890, where he is thought to have designed additions to Westburton House in Gloucestershire. Girvan notes that the terrace represents "an English design in an Irish setting".

The house faces north on an elevated site overlooking the sea, built with local basalt stone in random coursed rock-faced finish with tooled sandstone ashlar dressings and cement pointing. It features a steeply pitched natural slate roof with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles and a tall rendered chimneystack to the east, shared with the adjoining house. Two dormer windows to the front pitch, with the western dormer shared with the adjacent property, have hipped slate roofs and timber pinnacles. The dormers retain their original four-light iron latticed timber casement windows. Deep overhanging eaves are supported by two stop-chamfered timber brackets on sandstone corbels, with timber sheeting and exposed beams. Ogee-moulded cast-iron guttering is supported on timber fascia.

The front elevation is accessed via a segmental-headed recessed entrance porch shared with No. 8, featuring a stop-chamfered dressed sandstone surround and keystone. The porch door is square-headed and set at right angles to the façade, with an original sheeted timber door. The porch has a clay tiled floor opening onto a slightly raised area laid in cobbles that runs the entire length of the terrace. The single window opening on the front elevation is square-headed with stop-chamfered dressed sandstone surround and sandstone sill, retaining its original four-light timber window with original iron latticed glazing. The east and west elevations are abutted by adjoining houses.

The original plan consisted of a single room on the ground floor with a washhouse or scullery to the rear, with a staircase leading to the upper floor partitioned to form two small bedrooms. These modest cottages, often housing large families, were built for estate workers, though not all inhabitants were employed by the Hervey Bruce family. Valuation records show the houses were entered into the valuation fieldbook between 1873 and 1878, valued initially at £2 5s, dropping to £1 10s in 1887, with rents recorded at 10d per week. By the 1901 census all houses were designated second class. The first recorded tenant at number seven was William Carberry; by 1901 the occupier was Robert Kilgore, a shoemaker, living with his wife and two children. By the early 1930s the buildings retained much of their original character with kitchen on the ground floor, two small bedrooms upstairs, and a separate single-storey washhouse in the rear yard, with water supplied by pump. Rents at this period varied from 6s to 8s 8d per month.

The house retains much of its original external appearance, including the original iron latticed windows and original door, representing one of the best examples on the terrace. Its distinctive steeply pitched roof, deep overhanging eaves, tall chimney stacks, and original basalt stone walling with freestone dressings greatly contribute to the late nineteenth-century character of Castlerock.

A gable-ended two-storey rendered rear extension was built around 1995. Since the 1960s and 1970s the majority of houses on the terrace have been extended to the rear and refurbished internally. The property is street-fronted with an enclosed and paved rear patio, and the listing extends to include the house and the cobbles.