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

Craglea House (also known as Nos 27–31 Main Street) is a symmetrical, split-level, red-brick house built around 1890 and situated on the north side of Main Street in Castlerock, in the townland of Freehall Watson, overlooking Castlerock Beach and the Irish Sea. It has been divided into three apartments and, while of some architectural and historic interest, this is not considered sufficient to warrant statutory listing. The building retains inappropriate replacement fabric including uPVC windows, and the interior floorplan has been altered in the course of conversion to apartments.

The house is rectangular in plan, with projecting gabled end bays incorporating two-storey canted bays, and a two-storey L-shaped gabled wing to the southeast. A refurbished flat-roof conservatory sits to the southwest and a modern uPVC conservatory to the northwest. No. 31 occupies the entire ground floor and basement level. Access is from the southwest through a yard, and from the northeast via an entrance porch.

The roof is pitched natural slate — half-hipped to the central gable at the southwest — with blue and black angled ridge tiles and red-brick chimneystacks fitted with clay pots. There are timber bargeboards on brackets with timber-sheeted soffits and quatrefoil detailing. Rainwater goods are plastic, carried on modillioned timber eaves with timber-sheeted soffits.

The walling is 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. At ground floor level they are segmental-headed, set in plain reveals with lugged painted render surrounds; the two-storey canted bays to the northeast are similarly detailed. At first floor level the windows are pointed-headed — paired to the gables and set into segmental-headed reveals — with 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 refurbished conservatory at the southwest has replacement timber-framed windows with leaded and stained glass toplights.

The southwest entrance elevation is symmetrically arranged, with a central entrance bay flanked by slightly projecting gabled end bays, which are in turn abutted by the refurbished conservatory (serving as access to Nos 27 and 29) over a red-brick basement. The two gabled bays are connected by a narrow interlinking bay that 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 to the basement. The left gable has a 2/2 sash window at the right and is abutted by a single-storey flat-roof extension, which is lit by 2/2 timber sash windows and has a replacement glazed timber door at the southeast providing access to No. 31. 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 beneath the conservatory has two replacement timber-sheeted doors to the northwest and one to the southeast, with a 2/2 sash window alongside.

The northwest elevation has a square-headed window to the first floor centre, above two at ground floor. At basement level it is abutted by the modern uPVC conservatory and retains a 2/2 timber sash window to the left. The northeast elevation is three storeys high and 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 a two-storey canted bay. The southeast elevation is abutted by the two-storey L-shaped gabled wing; the northeast gable has a pointed-headed window over a canted bay with a leaded roof, and to the right a flat-roof entrance porch providing access to No. 31. The porch has double-leaf bolection-moulded three-panel timber doors with a transom light and sidelights incorporating margin panes and coloured glass panels. The southwest gable of the two-storey wing is abutted by a single-storey red-brick extension connecting to a modern two-storey red-brick dwelling under separate ownership.

The building sits within a rectangular plot. The basement to 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 is accessed from the northwest through a segmental-headed opening with a timber frame. The garden is laid with modern paving and gravel to the southwest and is lawned to the northeast, both areas bounded by rubblestone walls. At the southwest entrance stand a pair of centred square painted render piers with pointed caps supporting original iron latch-gates. A tarmacadamed driveway from Main Street leads to the entrance to No. 31. A modern two-storey red-brick building has been built directly to the southeast.

Historically, Craglea House owes its existence to the arrival of the railway at Castlerock. The Londonderry and Coleraine Railway Company's station was established in Castlerock in 1873–75 by John Lanyon, and the railway company actively promoted the village as a seaside resort, reportedly offering ten years of free first-class rail travel to anyone who built a seaside villa there. According to the Binevenagh Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty website, Craglea House was among the properties — alongside Seawell House and Atlantic Lodge — that may have been constructed as a result of this initiative.

The building was first recorded in the Annual Revisions in 1889, when it was occupied by Samuel Fletcher, described as a gentleman and former treasurer of Castlerock Golf Club. The valuer noted that the property, valued at £22, was leased by Fletcher from the estate of Sir H. Bruce. At that stage the house comprised the main two-storey red-brick block only; in 1894 a red-brick range was added to the east side, raising the rateable value to £25. The 1901 Census recorded neither Samuel Fletcher nor his wife at the property on census night, though his sons Herbert (aged 20, Church of Ireland) and Edmond (aged 18) were present. The census building return described the property as a first-class dwelling containing 21 rooms, making it the largest building along Main Street in Freehall Watson, with the eastern stable block as its sole out-office.

Craglea House appeared for the first time on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1906, which depicted the house in essentially its current form, including the extension linking the main block to the 1894 stable block, suggesting that little has changed in the intervening century. Although the conservatory to the southwest elevation does not appear on Ordnance Survey maps between 1906 and 1950, an Annual Revision town plan dated 1911 to around 1935 shows it was in place by at least the early decades of the 20th century. Between 1901 and 1907 the rateable value of Craglea House increased significantly, from £25 to £73; the valuer's notes offer no explanation, and it is presumed that a major renovation was carried out during this period.

Samuel Fletcher continued to live at Craglea until his death in 1909 (recorded in the PRONI Wills Catalogue). His widow Eliza then took possession of the property. The 1911 Census records Eliza (aged 59) living at Craglea with her son Edmond, employed as a journalist, and her daughter Elise; the census building return was unchanged from 1901, though by this time the stable block was being used as a turf house and shed. By the time of the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland in 1935, the formerly single private dwelling had been subdivided into three sections, all leased by Eliza Fletcher. The Fletchers continued to occupy the largest portion (No. 27), while No. 31, valued at £30, stood vacant. No further revaluation was carried out for over two decades due to the Second World War. Eliza Fletcher died around 1941 (Edmond having predeceased her in 1938, as recorded in the PRONI Wills Catalogue), and by the 1950s the family had vacated the house entirely. By the close of the Second Revaluation (1956–72), Craglea remained divided into three separate dwellings, with a combined rateable value of £104. Although the Fletchers no longer occupied the house, they continued to own it until the 1960s, when each portion was purchased outright by its respective tenant. The Second Revaluation records that No. 31 was occupied by the Reverend Dr W. A. Montgomery in 1967. The house continues today as three separate apartments.