61, 61A and 61B Castle Street, Ballycastle, County Antrim, BT54 6AR

This is a substantial three-storey terraced building on the south side of Castle Street, to the west of Ballycastle town centre, containing a ground-floor shop with two apartments above. It assumed much of its present form in 1885, when an earlier house — probably dating from the 1740s — was raised by a storey. The property now has large shop windows and a modern interior and is of little architectural interest.

The asymmetrical front elevation faces north. At ground-floor level, the centre has a recessed doorway to the shop, fitted with a modern glazed door. To its left is a large square window with plate glass, and to its right a large two-pane frame with plate glass. To the far left is a further recessed doorway — leading to the apartments — with a panelled timber door. A relatively small painted timber signboard sits above the shop doorway. At first-floor level there are three evenly spaced, uniform windows with modern timber frames, and three identical windows repeat this arrangement at second-floor level. The front façade is finished in painted lined render. The east gable is exposed at second-floor level, has no openings, and is finished in cement render that appears to have been painted at some point. A smaller upper section of the west gable is also exposed, equally without openings, and finished in painted cement render.

To the rear, there is a large two-storey gabled return, with a further, relatively large single-storey gabled section at its southern end. The west face of the return is single-storey and merges with the single-storey section to the south, with no openings on this side. There are likewise no openings to the east face of the return, though the east face of the southern section has a doorway fitted with a metal-sheeted door. The gable of the return has a window at ground-floor level and a slightly larger one at first-floor level, both with modern timber frames. On the rear façade of the main building, the ground floor has a doorway with a modern glazed door at the far right. The first floor has a window to the far left and another to the far right. Three windows occupy the second floor, with the middle one set at a slightly lower level, probably corresponding to a half-landing. The rear façade and return are largely finished in unpainted roughcast, while the gable of the southern section of the return is largely in unpainted cement render.

The gabled roof of the main building is covered in fibre cement slate and its chimneystacks have been removed. The roofs of the return and the smaller southern section are also covered in fibre cement slate, with a tall concrete brick chimneystack rising from the gable of the southern section. Cast-iron rainwater goods are used to the front; PVCu to the rear.

The site's history is well documented. An old, probably mid-18th-century, two-storey house is recorded here in the first valuation of January 1835, at that time occupied by a Hugh Jolly and a Jane McBride. By 1859, the tenant and leaseholder was an Andrew Revey, with the building described as containing a small shop with two kitchens behind and four rooms over with garrets. In 1869 Revey sublet the shop to a John Cochrane, who remained until 1882, when he was followed by an Archibald Coyle. Two years later, Hugh A. McAllister took up the lease of the whole property and, in 1885, added a third storey to the main building and built the return. McAllister remained as resident until 1929, when the lease was acquired by Ballycastle Urban District Council and the building was converted to offices. It appears to have remained in council use — latterly under Moyle District Council — until the early to mid-1980s, with a chemist's shop occupying the ground floor by at least 1987. One of the present occupants states that the building was gutted in the mid-1990s and the current upper-floor apartments created at that time.

The building lies within a conservation area. It was assessed for listing but delisted on 8 December 2008, having been judged of insufficient architectural or historical interest to merit inclusion on the statutory register.