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

4 Coastguard Cottages, Harbour Road, Ballintoy

This is the easternmost dwelling in a terrace of four former coastguard cottages (originally five), built around 1873 to replace an earlier, smaller watch house that still stands immediately to the north. The group occupies a dramatically exposed position on the clifftop above Ballintoy harbour — hidden from the harbour itself by the steep terrain — and is of considerable significance to the maritime history of this stretch of the Antrim coast. Number 4 is particularly notable because it incorporates a three-storey watch tower, formerly used for storage and coastal observation. Although some changes have been made to convert it to residential use, including the insertion of additional windows, a great deal of historic character survives.

Architectural Description

The building consists of an attached single-bay cottage joined to a three-stage lookout tower, both rectangular on plan. The cottage roof is hipped, covered in artificial slate, with a rebuilt brown brick chimneystack that has a moulded cap and multiple terracotta pots. The tower has a flat roof — formerly pyramidal — with a pebbledashed chimneystack. Rainwater goods are plastic on a timber fascia.

The walls are painted roughcast render throughout, with contrasting rock-faced stone quoins to the tower. Windows are uPVC. Most openings have rock-faced long-and-short stone surrounds, though later insertions to the tower have painted rendered surrounds designed to mimic stone. The tower retains its original diminutive 1-over-1 lancet windows to the east elevation. Cills are painted masonry and concrete.

The seaward (north) elevation of the cottage has a single window to each floor. The entrance faces south (landward) and is enclosed within a later timber conservatory spanning the full width of the elevation; within this is the original tongue-and-groove sheeted timber entrance door to the right and a window to the left, with a single window at first-floor level. The west side elevation abuts Number 3. The east side elevation is largely blank, abutted on the right by the tower, with only small square openings at ground and first floor (the upper one sitting just below eaves level).

The tower is entered from the south via a replacement timber door with a transom light, set in a stepped stone surround and approached by three stone steps; a narrow lancet window has been inserted to the right of this entrance. At the first stage, there is a triple lancet sash window to the east, and a matching group of windows to the north that has been infilled. The exposed west elevation has an inserted window at both first and second stage levels. At the upper lookout stage, each face has a double-faceted lookout window; each of these projects outward on a long stepped corbel and is covered by its own small hipped artificial slate roof. The building retains physical evidence of the defensive functions of the early coastguard service, including gun loops and panoramic lookout windows.

Setting and Grounds

The cottages occupy an extremely exposed clifftop position above Ballintoy harbour. To the north is a narrow communal strip of lawn; to the east is a series of original individual kitchen garden plots. The garden belonging to Number 4 is self-contained within a railed enclosure and retains some decorative features, including a large sundial. To the south, each cottage has a rendered single-storey lean-to outbuilding with toilet; that belonging to Number 4 has been enlarged and fitted with vehicular timber-sheeted doors. The rear of the properties are linked by a raised platform.

Number 4 is bounded by dwarf barley-twist cast iron railings, terminating at the east end with a communal wrought-iron gate that leads to the gardens via a set of stone steps. The shared northern boundary wall is rubble masonry with a soldier-coursed coping; a single surviving tooled and dressed pier at the west end has a pyramidal cap.

Historical Background

The Water Guard (also known as the Preventative Boat Service) was formed in 1809 as the sea-based arm of revenue enforcement, patrolling the shore and operating a series of watch houses along the coast. Following the imposition of excise duties by the British Government on a wide range of goods, smuggling became increasingly active. In response, the Irish Coast Guard was established by the Board of Customs in 1822, replacing several earlier independent bodies — including the Water Guard, Revenue Cruisers and Riding Officers — all concerned with policing the coastline. The role of the Irish Coastguard was initially revenue protection and coastal defence, but following the Coastguard Service Act of 1856, control passed from the Board of Customs to the Admiralty. With the decline of smuggling, the service shifted toward functioning as an auxiliary to the Navy while maintaining some revenue protection and lifesaving duties. The 1856 Act enabled the acquisition of land for new stations and the enlargement of existing ones; the Admiralty undertook extensive building work, spending £35,000 between 1856 and 1862, resulting in a large number of purpose-built stations.

Between 1907 and 1912, 79 stations were closed. From 4,100 men employed in 1901, numbers had fallen to 3,000 by 1911. When control passed to the Board of Trade in 1923, a number of Admiralty stations were closed or downgraded, as the locations and priorities of stations had shifted; the primary role became coastal observation alongside responsibility for coordinating all lifesaving activities, including the RNLI. By 1931 the number of regular coastguards had dramatically fallen, and stations were manned by ever smaller numbers, supplemented by auxiliary staff. The decline in stations continued throughout the 20th century. In the 1960s there was a move away from manned coastal watch stations toward remote monitoring of shipping from designated Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centres, and by the mid-1970s a decision had been taken to sell off the remaining coastguard accommodation.

Until the late 20th century, most ranks of the coastguard service and their families were housed in closely grouped rows of cottages, typically accompanied by a watch room, boathouse, equipment store, wash-house and enclosing boundary wall. Kitchen gardens were commonly provided, as rural stations often had to be self-sufficient. The officer's house was usually at the end of the terrace and differed only in having a few additional rooms. Because Admiralty-era stations were designed to be defensible from attack, the houses were built to be intercommunicating, with a minimum number of external entrances and gun loops strategically placed to defend entrances and windows. Watch rooms were used to store ammunition, signalling and observation equipment, serve as a command point, and from the 1920s to house the station telephone. Where the watch room was contained within the officer's house, it had separate access and was unconnected to the domestic quarters.

A coastguard station was first established at Ballintoy in January 1822. A square-plan watch house is shown on the first and second edition Ordnance Survey maps (1831–33 and 1853–58) just to the north of the present site. Samuel Lewis's Topographical Dictionary (1837) records: "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 the Annual Revisions of 1864–78 record that they were replaced by the present group of buildings, newly built around 1873 and valued at £20. An Alexander G. Fullerton was noted as lessor.

First shown on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1900–06, captioned "Coastguard Station", this linear group contains four small kitchen garden plots to the rear with a number of detached outbuildings, and a square-plan watch tower abutting the eastern elevation of the main terrace. The 1901 Census records the buildings as five private dwellings, each housing one of five coastguards and their families: Thomas Fox, Arthur Strange, John Jarrett, John Giles and William Stokesbury. Each dwelling was noted as comprising four rooms — two on each floor — with two windows to the front. John Jarrett was listed as Chief Boatman in Charge, and his house (thought to be Number 1) was larger, with six rooms and four windows to the front elevation. Notably, all the coastguards and much of their families were recorded as coming from England, having been stationed at Ballintoy rather than appointed from the local area.

The collective rateable value fell to £17 10s in 1909 when one house was listed as vacant, then rose back to £20 by 1910 — at which point the entire group was recorded as vacant. By 1914 the vacant houses and outbuildings, listed as the "old Coastguard Station", had been surrendered by the Admiralty and had passed into the ownership of a George Fullerton. Although the fourth edition Ordnance Survey map of 1922–31 still captions the site "Coastguard Cottages", both the valuation records and the Ulster Town Directories of 1906–13 indicate that the station ceased to operate around 1908, as the Admiralty closed a number of stations throughout Britain and Ireland during this period.

Following the transfer of control to the Board of Trade in 1923, the watch tower was separately valued at £4 in the Annual Revisions of 1916–30 and continued to be operated by the Board, likely functioning as an auxiliary lookout point. The First and Second General Revaluations (covering 1935–57 and 1958–72) show that the watch tower and store remained in use until 1937, after which the building was converted into a dwelling and occupied by a Helen May until at least the 1970s.

The same revaluation records show that the present Number 4 — originally numbered 5 — was owned by an Andrew McGoogan, followed by an Ann Duff from 1952. Its rateable value was more than double that of the adjoining cottages to the west; as the building itself does not differ significantly in scale, this disparity likely reflects the number of outbuildings included with the property. During the late 20th century, the cottage was amalgamated with the adjoining watch tower to the east to form a single dwelling. The associated outbuildings have remained largely unchanged since at least the early 20th century.