1 Coastguard Cottages, Harbour Road, Ballintoy, Ballycastle, Co. Antrim, BT54 6NA

No. 1 Coastguard Cottages, Ballintoy — Former Coastguard Dwelling, circa 1873

No. 1 Coastguard Cottages is an attached two-storey, two-bay former coastguard dwelling built around 1873, forming the western end of a terrace of four (formerly five) coastguard cottages with a lookout tower, situated on the clifftop to the south of Ballintoy Harbour, County Antrim. It was built as part of a group that replaced an earlier, smaller watch house which still survives immediately to the north. The listing extends to include the gate posts, steps, railings, and cast-iron pump associated with the property.

The building is rectangular on plan, with a later full-height infill extension at the north-west corner that squares off the original footprint. The roof is hipped, covered in artificial slate, and shared with the rest of the terrace; it carries a rebuilt brown brick chimneystack with a moulded cap and multiple terracotta pots. The corner extension has a flat, lead-covered roof. Rainwater goods are plastic, carried on a timber fascia. The external walls are finished in painted smooth render throughout. Windows are uPVC casements without glazing bars, set in plain reveals with painted masonry cills; the extension has concrete cills.

The seaward (north) elevation of the original cottage has two windows to each floor, with the extension adding a further window at each level to the west. The east elevation is largely concealed by the adjoining No. 2, though it extends beyond it to the south; there are no openings on this face, but an infilled gun loop is present at ground floor level, now contained within the rear porch of No. 2. The west elevation formerly had its main entrance at centre, which has since been infilled, though the step remains visible. Above the position of the former door is an oriel window with a sheeted base; to the right of this are a small window and a gun loop. The extension on this elevation is lit by a window at each floor.

The landward (south) elevation is the principal public face. At ground floor, a timber conservatory on a rendered plinth spans the centre and right-hand portion of this elevation. The entrance door is centrally placed — a replacement timber door — flanked by a window to either side; the window to the right retains its original rock-faced long-and-short surrounds, and there is a gun loop to the left. At first floor, there is a window to the right and a double-faceted panoramic lookout window to the left, set on a stepped corbel. Gun loops are also found elsewhere on the exterior, strategically positioned to defend entrances and windows, reflecting the requirement for Admiralty-era coastguard stations to be defensible from attack.

The building is considered significant principally as part of the wider group rather than in isolation. No. 1 has been extended and altered in ways that detract from its original character, but it retains historical and social importance as part of a remarkably complete coastguard station complex. The gun loops and lookout windows are physical evidence of the defensive and revenue-protection functions of the early coastguard service, and the group as a whole is of considerable importance to the maritime history of this stretch of the Antrim coast.

Setting and Outbuildings

The cottages occupy an extremely exposed clifftop site above Ballintoy Harbour, dramatically positioned yet, due to the steep terrain, surprisingly hidden from view from the harbour below. Gardens are communal and include a narrow strip of lawn to the north and a series of original individual kitchen garden plots to the east — features of social interest that reflect the self-sufficient nature of rural coastguard life.

To the south of each cottage, lining the edge of a narrow linear yard, runs a row of single-storey lean-to outbuildings and toilets. The yard to No. 1 retains some of its original cobbled surface. The outbuildings to No. 1 have slated roofs and walls of both painted render and limewashed rubblestone. The toilet is reached via a short passage screened by a limewashed rubblestone wall with soldier coping.

To the rear of No. 1 stands a separate square-plan single-storey outbuilding, formerly the communal laundry for the station and now used as a store. It has a slated roof with a tall yellow brick chimneystack, rendered walls, a timber sheeted door to the north, and a replacement fixed window to the south. A cast-iron pump is fixed to the north wall.

The rear of the properties is connected by a raised platform. That to No. 1 is partially covered by the conservatory and has been replaced with concrete; the west side is bounded by dwarf cast-iron barley-twist railings with ball finials. The shared northern boundary wall is of rubble masonry with a soldier-coursed coping and retains a single tooled and dressed pier at the west end, finished with a pyramidal cap.

Historical Background

A coastguard station was first established at Ballintoy in January 1822, following the creation of the Irish Coast Guard by the Board of Customs that year. The Irish Coast Guard replaced a number of earlier independent bodies — including the Water Guard (also known as the Preventative Boat Service, formed in 1809), the Revenue Cruisers, and Riding Officers — all of which had been concerned with policing the coastline against smuggling, which had grown increasingly active following the imposition of British excise duties on a wide range of goods.

An earlier square-plan watch house at Ballintoy is shown on the first and second edition Ordnance Survey maps (1831–3 and 1853–8) just to the north of the present site, and is recorded in Samuel Lewis's 1837 description of Ballintoy: "At Port Ballintoy there is a coast-guard station, which is one of eight stations that form the district of Ballycastle." This earlier watch house and its associated boathouse were valued at £1 5s in Griffith's Valuation of 1859, but Annual Revision records between 1864 and 1878 show that they were replaced by the present group of buildings, newly built around 1873 and valued at £20, with an Alexander G. Fullerton noted as the lessor.

The role of the coastguard had shifted significantly following the Coastguard Service Act of 1856, which transferred control from the Board of Customs to the Admiralty. As smuggling declined, the service became an auxiliary to the Navy while retaining some revenue-protection and lifesaving duties. The 1856 Act enabled the Admiralty to acquire land and build new stations; between 1856 and 1862, £35,000 was spent on new building work across the network, resulting in a large number of purpose-built stations of the type seen at Ballintoy. These Admiralty-era stations were designed to be defensible, with intercommunicating houses, entrances kept to a minimum, and gun loops placed to cover vulnerable points on the exterior. Watch rooms or watch houses were used to store ammunition and signalling equipment, to give orders, and, from the 1920s, to house the station telephone.

The present station first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map (1900–06), captioned "Coastguard Station," showing the linear terrace with four small kitchen garden plots to the rear, several detached outbuildings, and a square-plan watch house abutting the eastern elevation of the main building. Census records from 1901 show the station comprising five private dwellings, each housing a coastguard and his family: Thomas Fox, Arthur Strange, John Jarrett, John Giles, and William Stokesbury. Each dwelling was recorded as having four rooms across two floors with two windows to the front. John Jarrett, listed as Chief Boatman in charge, occupied what is thought to be No. 1; his house was larger than the others, with six rooms and four windows to the front elevation. Notably, all five coastguards and much of their families were recorded as being from England, having been stationed at Ballintoy rather than recruited locally.

By 1909 the collective value of the buildings had decreased to £17 10s, with one house vacant; by 1910 the value had returned to £20 but the entire group was recorded as vacant. By 1914 the buildings, described in the records as the "old Coastguard Station," had been surrendered by the Admiralty and passed into the ownership of a George Fullerton. Valuation records and Ulster Town Directories from 1906 to 1913 indicate that the station ceased to operate around 1908, part of a wider closure of Admiralty stations across Britain and Ireland during this period, though the buildings continued to be shown as "Coastguard Cottages" on the fourth edition Ordnance Survey map (1931–7).

Following the transfer of coastguard control to the Board of Trade in 1923, the watch tower was separately valued at £4 in the Annual Revisions from 1916 to 1930 and appears to have continued operating as an auxiliary lookout. Revaluation records from 1935 to 1972 show that the watch tower and store remained in use until 1937, after which the tower was converted to a dwelling and later amalgamated with the cottage to its west to form the present No. 4. No. 1 itself remained vacant until 1936, when a Margaret Scott (later Heaney) was recorded as the occupier. At that point the property was recorded as a house without outbuildings, giving it a value of 10 shillings less than the neighbouring cottages, which were valued at £4 10s. The occupier changed again in 1959, with a Hazel Duff recorded from 1969; by that time the listing included a garden and outbuildings, with the property's assessed value surpassing those of the adjoining buildings. The outbuildings to the south of the group have remained largely unchanged since at least the early 20th century.

Between 1907 and 1912, seventy-nine coastguard stations across the network were closed, reducing the workforce from around 4,100 men in 1901 to approximately 3,000 by 1911. The number of stations continued to fall throughout the 20th century. In the 1960s there was a move away from physical coastal watch to remote monitoring of vessels from designated Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centres, and by the mid-1970s it had been decided to sell off the remaining coastguard accommodation.