Cliff House, 51 Main Street, Castlerock, Co. Londonderry, BT51 4XB

Cliff House, built c.1862, is a detached symmetrical three-bay two-storey rendered house located on an elevated site on the north side of Main Street in Castlerock, overlooking the beach to the north. The building is possibly designed by Samuel Angell, architect to the Clothworkers' Company, though historical records are unclear about both the precise date and authorship.

The house features a hipped artificial slate roof with black clay ridge and hip tiles, and two rendered chimneystacks topped with octagonal clay pots. The timber sheeted overhanging eaves are supported by plain timber brackets, with replacement metal guttering and uPVC downpipes. The walls are finished in smooth cement render with a projecting cement plinth course.

The symmetrical north front elevation has three bays with square-headed window openings fitted with replacement 6/6 timber sash windows and painted stone sills. The central feature is a square-headed door opening with a tripartite timber doorcase, flanked by slender pilasters with plain sidelights below and a moulded timber architrave surround. The replacement flush timber door opens onto a concrete step leading to a gravel front area. The east and west side elevations are each two windows wide. The south rear elevation contains a single square-headed door opening with a vertically-sheeted timber door opening onto a concrete step to a rear gravel parking area.

Recently refurbished, the house retains its overall external appearance with modern materials. The insertion of correctly specified timber sash windows and retention of the majority of internal detailing has ensured the building retains its original character as a good example of a mid-nineteenth-century coastal dwelling.

The setting comprises an elevated terraced rear garden enclosed by rubble basalt walls, accessed from Main Street via decorative cast-iron gates supported on a pair of decorative cast-iron octagonal posts. A flat-roofed rendered garage, built c.1980, stands adjacent to the west side elevation.

The house was built for the Crawford family. Samuel L Crawford was the earliest occupier noted c.1862, followed by Reverend James Crawford, minister of the Second Presbyterian Church on Strand Road, Derry from 1811 until his retirement in 1849. After Reverend Crawford's death in 1868, the house passed to Alexander Crawford and then to Miss Wilson, possibly a granddaughter. Reverend Crawford's son-in-law was Reverend Matthew Wilson, minister of the Third Presbyterian Church in Ramelton, Donegal from 1839 to 1849, before succeeding his father-in-law at Strand Road in Derry.

Historical records suggest conflicting dates: James Stevens Curl records a construction date of 1849–50 and attributes the design to Samuel Angell for Samuel Greer; however, valuation records indicate c.1862. The building does not appear in Griffith's Valuation of 1859. A rectangular structure shown at or near the site on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1848 is listed in Griffith's Valuation (1856–64) as a caretaker's house of very low valuation and unlikely to have formed the core of the present house. Angell produced a development plan for Castlerock in the late 1840s, and it appears that some planned structures, including possibly the current house, were not executed for several years. The house and outbuildings were valued at £16 in 1862.

Early twentieth-century census returns do not record the building, most likely because it was occupied only during the summer season. By 1897 the house had passed to Mrs S Rankin and remained in the Rankin family until 1923, when Selina R Watson took over, followed by Edgar Johnston in 1948 and Matthew Henning in 1952. Valuer's notes from the 1930s record the accommodation as comprising a kitchen, pantry, scullery and two reception rooms on the ground floor, and four bedrooms, a maid's room, a bathroom and a WC on the first floor. The Watsons had purchased the lease from the Bruce estate and paid an annual ground rent of £2 10 shillings. The house was listed in 1982, and repairs and renovations were undertaken in the 1980s and 1990s.

The extent of listing includes the house, gates, piers and walling.