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

10 Cliff Terrace is a terraced single-bay one-and-a-half-storey stone cottage built around 1875 as part of a terrace of twelve similar houses designed by architect Frederick Henry Godwin for Sir William Harvey Bruce. The terrace, known locally as the 'Twelve Apostles', is built on an elevated site overlooking the sea to the west of Castlerock.

The house retains its original external appearance and internal layout. It is constructed of random coursed rock-faced basalt walling with tooled sandstone ashlar dressings and cement pointing. The steeply pitched natural slate roof has roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles and a tall rendered chimney stack to the west, shared with the adjoining house. A pair of dormer windows to the front pitch have hipped slate roofs and timber pinnacles; the east dormer is shared with the adjoining house and retains its original iron latticed timber casement, while the west dormer has a uPVC replacement window. The eaves are deep and overhanging, with timber sheeting and exposed timber beams supported by two stop-chamfered timber brackets on sandstone corbels. Cast-iron guttering is supported on a timber fascia.

The front elevation features a single square-headed window opening with a stop-chamfered dressed sandstone surround and sandstone sill, now fitted with a uPVC window. The entrance is a segmental-headed recessed porch with stop-chamfered dressed sandstone surround and keystone, shared with the adjoining No. 9. The porch has a square-headed door opening set at right angles to the façade with an original sheeted timber door and iron door furniture. A large worn sandstone step opens onto a slightly raised area laid in cobbles running the entire length of the terrace. The rear elevation is now occupied by a flat-roofed single-storey rendered extension added around 1980.

Internally, each house originally consisted of a single room on the ground floor with a washhouse or scullery to the rear, while a staircase led to the upper floor where space was partitioned to form two bedrooms. A separate single-storey washhouse stood in the rear yard, and water had to be carried from a pump. By the 1930s, the houses remained largely as originally constructed with a kitchen on the ground floor and two small bedrooms upstairs.

The terrace was built to house estate workers, though not all inhabitants were employed by the Hervey Bruce family. Rent in 1887 was 10 shillings per week, later reduced to sixpence per week and varying to 8 shillings and 8 pence per month by the 1930s. At the 1901 census, the three-room houses were all designated second class. The first recorded tenant of number ten was William Graham; by 1901 the occupier was Rachel Anderson, a 76-year-old widow and washerwoman, who lived with her daughter and son, a labourer.

Although the insertion of uPVC windows has greatly diminished the character of the house, it retains its front door and a pair of original windows. The distinctive steeply pitched roof, deep overhanging eaves, tall chimney stacks, and original basalt stone walling with freestone dressings contribute significantly to the late nineteenth-century character of Castlerock.

Since the 1960s and 1970s, the majority of the houses in the terrace have been extended to the rear and refurbished internally. The house is street-fronted with the rear extension fronting directly onto the gravel rear access lane.