27 Main Street, Castlerock, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT51 4RA

Craglea House (Nos 27–31 Main Street, Castlerock) is a symmetrical, split-level red-brick house built around 1890, located on the north side of Main Street in the townland of Freehall Watson, overlooking Castlerock Beach and the Irish Sea. It has since been divided into three apartments. Although it is of some architectural and historic interest, this has been judged insufficient to warrant statutory listing.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The building is rectangular on plan, with projecting gabled end bays each containing two-storey canted bay windows. To the southeast there is a two-storey L-shaped gabled wing, to the southwest a refurbished flat-roof conservatory, and to the northwest a modern uPVC conservatory. The roof is pitched natural slate, half-hipped to the central gable at the southwest, with blue-black angled ridge tiles and red-brick chimneystacks with some clay pots. Timber bargeboards on brackets have timber-sheeted soffits and quatrefoil detailing. Rainwater goods are plastic, carried on modillioned timber eaves with timber-sheeted soffits.

The walls are Flemish-bonded red brick with channel-rusticated strip render quoins to the gabled bays and a continuous sill course running between floors. The canted bays and conservatory are finished in painted smooth render. Windows are generally uPVC, though some original fabric survives: segmental-headed openings at ground floor sit in plain reveals with lugged painted render surrounds; pointed-headed windows at first floor — paired at the gables, set into segmental-headed reveals — have red brick voussoirs and decorative polychrome hood moulds; some segmental-headed 2/2 timber sash windows with horizontal glazing bars and horns survive at basement level. The conservatory at the southwest has replacement timber-framed windows with leaded-and-stained glass top-lights.

Southwest (entrance) elevation: This is the principal façade and is symmetrically arranged, with a central entrance bay flanked by slightly projecting gabled end bays, abutted by the refurbished conservatory (which provides access to numbers 27 and 29) over a red-brick basement. The two gables are connected by a narrow interlinking bay, which has a replacement leaded-and-stained glass window at each floor. Each gabled bay has paired windows at first floor over two windows at ground floor. The right gable has an early 20th-century double-leaf glazed timber door with a two-paned transom light at basement level. The left gable has a 2/2 sash window at the right and is abutted by a single-storey flat-roof extension lit by 2/2 timber sash windows; this extension has a replacement glazed timber door providing access to number 31 at the southeast. The central entrance bay is two windows wide at first floor. The conservatory has channel-rusticated corner piers rising to parapet piers with a partially intact timber balustrade and turned balusters; it is lit by timber-framed windows with a continuous sill course and moulded apron panels below, and opens to the southwest through a set of replacement glazed timber doors. The basement of the conservatory has two replacement timber-sheeted doors at the northwest and one to the southeast, together with a 2/2 sash window.

Northwest elevation: There is a square-headed window at first floor centre over two windows at ground floor. At basement level, the elevation is abutted by the modern uPVC conservatory and retains a 2/2 timber sash window at the left.

Northeast elevation: This is the three-storey rear elevation, symmetrically arranged. The central bay has two square-headed windows at second floor and two sets of paired windows at both first and ground floor. The flanking gabled bays each have a window at second floor above two-storey canted bays.

Southeast elevation: This is abutted by the two-storey L-shaped gabled wing. The northeast gable has a pointed-headed window over the canted bay (which has a leaded roof) and a flat-roof entrance porch at the right providing access to number 31. The porch has double-leaf bolection-moulded three-panel timber doors with a transom light and sidelights with margin panes and coloured glass panels. The southwest gable of the two-storey wing is abutted by a single-storey red-brick extension connecting the house to a modern two-storey red-brick dwelling under separate ownership.

INTERIOR AND PLAN

The original floorplan has been altered as part of the refurbishment into three apartments. Number 27 occupies the ground and first floors of the southeast gable and the interlinking bay, accessed via the conservatory at the northwest.

SETTING

The house sits on a rectangular plot. The basement on the southwest side is enclosed by Flemish-bonded red-brick walls with painted coping stones topped by original decorative wrought-iron railings. The basement yard is laid with concrete and accessed from the northwest through a segmental-headed opening with a timber frame. To the southwest the garden is laid with modern paving and gravel; to the northeast it is lawned; both sides are bounded by rubblestone walls. At the southwest entrance stand a pair of square painted render piers with pointed caps supporting original iron latch-gates. A tarmacadamed driveway from Main Street leads to the entrance to number 31. A modern two-storey red-brick building has been built directly to the southeast.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Nos 27–31 Main Street — also known as Craglea House — owes its construction to the laying of the railway through Castlerock and the establishment of the village's railway station in 1873–75 by John Lanyon. The Londonderry and Coleraine Railway Company encouraged the development of Castlerock as a seaside resort, reportedly offering ten years of first-class rail travel free to anyone who built a seaside villa in the village. Craglea House, along with Seawell House and Atlantic Lodge, is recorded as likely having been built under this initiative.

The building was first recorded in the Annual Revisions in 1889, when it was occupied by Samuel Fletcher, a gentleman and former treasurer of Castlerock Golf Club. The property, valued at £22, was leased by Fletcher from the estate of Sir H. Bruce. As originally completed, nos 27–31 consisted of the main two-storey red-brick block; in 1894 the two-storey gabled wing to the east was added, raising the valuation to £25.

During the 1901 Census, Samuel Fletcher and his wife were not present, though his sons Herbert (aged 20, Church of Ireland) and Edmond (aged 18) were recorded on census night. The building return described the property as a first-class dwelling of 21 rooms — the largest building along Main Street in Freehall Watson — with the eastern stable block as its sole outbuilding.

The house first appeared on the third edition Ordnance Survey maps in 1906, by which point the layout — including the extension linking the house with the 1894 stable block — was already as it exists today, suggesting few subsequent structural alterations. Although the single-storey conservatory to the southwest does not appear on Ordnance Survey maps between 1906 and 1950, it is shown on an Annual Revision town plan dated 1911 to approximately 1935, confirming it was in place by the early decades of the 20th century. Between 1901 and 1907 the Annual Revisions recorded a substantial increase in the value of Craglea House, from the 1901 figure to £73 by 1907, though the valuer's notes offer no explanation; a major renovation during this period can only be presumed.

Samuel Fletcher continued to reside at Craglea until his death in 1909 (recorded in the PRONI Wills Catalogue). His widow Eliza then took possession, and the 1911 Census records her (aged 59) living there with her son Edmond, employed as a journalist, and her daughter Elise. By 1911 the stable block was being used as a turf house and shed. The First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland in 1935 found the house already subdivided into three sections, all leased by Eliza Fletcher. The Fletchers occupied number 27 — the largest portion, valued at £42 — while other tenants occupied the two remaining parts, each valued at £30. The Fletcher family most likely vacated Craglea around 1941 following Eliza Fletcher's death (Edmond had died in 1938; both recorded in PRONI Wills). By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) the house remained divided into three dwellings with a combined value of £104. The Fletchers retained ownership until the 1960s, when each portion was purchased outright by its then-tenant. The revaluation records note that a Miss Anna S. Kimmitt resided at number 27 in 1956, succeeded as occupant by a Mr James Simmons in 1970.

Craglea House continues to be subdivided into three separate apartments.