6 Coastguard Cottages, Causeway View Lane, Portrush, BT56 8DA

Number 6 Coastguard Cottages is a two-storey end-of-terrace house forming part of a former Coastguard station built in 1896. It sits at the northern end of a terrace of six dwellings known as 1–6 Coastguard Cottages, which together with the detached two-storey station building and commanding officer's house at 130 Main Street, a range of original outhouses, and a later boathouse and associated store, make up the surviving Coastguard estate on the northern edge of Portrush town centre.

The station occupies a slight rise between Main Street to the south and Causeway View Lane to the north. The terrace runs north to south, with the former station building at the southern end of the site. The entire grouping is designed in a simple, loosely Georgian style — described as having an almost artisan-cottage simplicity — and may originally have been finished in brick throughout, though it is now almost entirely rendered. The detached gardens belonging to the individual dwellings are arranged to the west side of the terrace.

The six cottages are organised as three pairs with mirrored internal layouts. Numbers 3–4 and 5–6 are paired and entered from the east, with access off Causeway View Lane. Numbers 1–2 are paired, entered from the west with access off Main Street, and are slightly larger than the rest, reflecting the higher rank of their occupants — the commanding officer occupied No. 130 and middle-ranking officers Nos. 1–2.

No. 6 is an end-of-terrace house at the north end of the block. Its front façade faces east and is accessed via a communal yard. The roof is pitched and finished with artificial slate and grey fireclay ridge tiles. The eaves are overhanging with exposed rafter tails, and rainwater goods are uPVC. There is a shared rendered chimneystack to the ridge, decorated with corbelled bands and fitted with unmatched clay pots. The walls are rendered and painted with a ruled and lined finish; the west elevation is set on a rubble stone canted plinth. Windows are flat-headed and informally arranged to both the west and east façades; frames are uPVC. To the right side of the rear west façade there is a single-storey projecting lean-to porch. On its south face is a flat-headed door opening fitted with a sheeted timber stable door, and on its east face a small flat-headed window. To the centre of the north façade there is a later flat-headed door opening reached by a short flight of concrete steps; this door does not appear to be in use.

To the east of the terrace are two communal access yards separated by a masonry wall. The northern yard gives access to the front entrances of Nos. 3–6, while the southern yard gives access to the rears of No. 130 and Nos. 1–2. Behind Nos. 3–6 there is a small range of single-storey outbuildings containing a communal washhouse and two small outhouses per dwelling — one an outside WC and the other a fuel store. The terrace is set back behind a rubble-stone wall topped with a rubble-stone coping. At its centre is a coach entrance giving access to a communal parking area; the opening is flanked by squared dressed-stone gate pillars topped with chamfered copestones, to which replacement timber gates have been added. These gates, gate pillars, and the eastern section of the boundary wall are listed as part of this property.

The gardens extend to the west. A Belfast truss-roofed building constructed on part of the gardens originally belonging to Nos. 5 and 6 was built at some point after 1921, and possibly after 1935, as it does not appear on the Ordnance Survey map partially revised in that year. It does not appear to have had any functional relationship to the cottages themselves.

The 1896 station replaced an earlier one that pre-dated 1857, which comprised a station house and four smaller dwellings arranged in a terrace fronting directly onto Main Street, and which may not have been purpose-built. A Board of Works tender notice for the new buildings appeared in August 1892, though valuation records do not record a new Coastguard station as being in progress until 1896. The architect is not known, but valuations suggest the total building cost was approximately £2,500. The original station building also possessed a rocket station and a look-out hut, which may have been elevated, though this is not certain.

No. 6 was the first of the cottages to be let to a private tenant following the reorganisation of the Coastguard in 1923, when it was recorded as let to a Mrs. Millar. She remained in residence until 1940, when a William Strathdee is noted as the occupant. A Mr or Mrs. Hamill is listed as the next resident from approximately 1957 to around 1972, followed by Vicky and Jimmy Doole (approximately 1974–84), Gail [surname unknown] (1984–86), and Brian Ross (1986–94). The present owners acquired the property in 1994.

The Coastguard in Ireland traces its origins to the Preventative Water Guard, a UK-wide body established in 1809 to combat smuggling. In 1816 it was expanded and reorganised to take control of revenue vessels, and in 1822 was transferred to the Board of Customs and renamed the Coast Guard. Although in practice involved in rescuing those in difficulty at sea, revenue protection rather than lifesaving remained its official function. In 1856 the Guard was transferred to the Admiralty and its largely naval staff took on coastal defence roles and served as a naval reserve. In 1923 the Coastguard was placed under the Board of Trade, with its role thereafter restricted to lifesaving, salvage from wreck, and the administration of the foreshore. It was at this point that staffing was reduced and the cottages began to be let to private tenants.