80 Coast Road, Cushendall, Co. Antrim, BT44 0SR

80 Coast Road, Cushendall, County Antrim

This is a two-bay, two-storey semi-detached rendered house built around 1885 as officers' quarters for the local coastguard station. It forms the northernmost unit of what was originally a row of four dwellings; the row now contains three. The architect is not known. The building is L-shaped on plan, with a front entrance porch and a two-storey return, and sits back slightly on the east side of Coast Road — also known as Glenariffe Road — which runs between Cushendall and Waterfoot. It is located in the townland of Bellisk (also known as Waterford).

The building shares strong group value with the adjoining No. 82 Coast Road and with the coastguard station at No. 70 Coast Road to the north-east. Together, Nos. 80 and 82 read as a well-proportioned, unified pair, their almost symmetrical composition characterised by hipped natural slate roofs, profiled chimney stacks, segmental-arched window openings, and rough-cast rendered walling with dressings picked out in black. Despite some later alterations, this coherent paired composition and its maritime associations make the building a distinctive presence within the coastal setting.

Exterior

The natural slate roof is hipped to the north, finished with black clay ridge tiles, and has overhanging eaves with exposed rafter tails. Rainwater goods are plastic. There are two rendered, profiled chimney stacks with octagonal clay pots. The walling is painted rough-cast render with tooled flush masonry quoins. Window openings are segmental-headed, with painted splayed masonry sills and painted tooled flush toothed quoined surrounds. The principal windows are replacement sliding timber sash with slender ogee horns and six-over-six lights. Walls and window frames are painted white throughout, while the base plinth, window and door surrounds, rainwater goods, and rafter ends are all painted black in contrast.

The two-bay front (west) elevation has a central entrance porch with a hipped natural slate roof, multi-pane timber casement windows, and a glazed timber door opening onto a concrete step and the shared front yard. The north elevation of the main house is blind, with a central chimney stack rising through the eaves. The north face of the return has a single timber-framed door with a multi-paned upper panel, accessed by five concentric steps; the opening is square-headed within a segmental arched surround with toothed quoins. The rear (east) elevation has a single window opening at each level either side of the two-storey return. The east end elevation of the return has square-headed window openings set within segmental arched surrounds with toothed quoins, but these are fitted with uPVC casement windows and concrete sills — a detracting alteration. The south side of the building abuts the adjoining No. 82.

Setting

The building is set back slightly and at a lower level than the road, overlooking the sea to the east. A shared concrete hard-standing to the front is enclosed by a low rough-cast rendered wall with a concrete coping and replacement steel gates hung on square pillars. A concrete driveway to the north opens into a shared rear yard, where a modern dwelling stands to the east. A flat-roofed outbuilding — also rough-cast rendered and painted white — sits to the north-east of the row and has three vertically boarded painted timber doors.

Historical Background

No. 80 Coast Road was constructed around 1885, together with the adjoining Nos. 82–84, to serve as Mess Quarters for the officers of the coastguard station at No. 70 Coast Road. The coastguard station itself had been in existence prior to 1832 and had originally housed all local coastguard officers. The station was responsible for protecting shipping along the County Antrim coast, a stretch of water that saw a number of wrecks in the early 19th century, including the transatlantic barque New Zealand (1841), the Mediterranean-bound brig Scotia (1842), and the Helen (1849), a ferry operating between Glenarm and Glasgow, all lost on rocks between Cushendall and Red Bay (Wilson, Shipwrecks of the Ulster Coast, p. 117).

The Annual Revisions record that Nos. 80–84 were leased by the Admiralty and originally divided into four dwellings, each occupying a two-storey single bay and valued at £6 apiece at the turn of the 20th century. The third-edition Ordnance Survey map of 1903 shows the buildings as a simple rectangular structure to the south-west of the coastguard station. The 1911 Census of Ireland records that only three of the four dwellings were then inhabited, occupied respectively by George Whayman (Petty Officer), Frank Ernest Richards (loading boatman), and John Caine (Royal Navy Coast Guard). Each apartment was classified as a second-class dwelling of four rooms, with a fowl house, turf house, and shed to the rear.

No. 80 — comprising the northernmost two bays of the row — had its rateable value increased to £14 under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57). By the 1930s the buildings appear to have ceased coastguard use and were leased to private tenants by Dixon Estates Ltd. The occupancy of No. 80 changed frequently over the following decades until around 1967, when it was purchased outright by a Mr. James O'Neill. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), its total rateable value stood at £20.

In 1972, the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society's guide to the Glens of Antrim described Nos. 80–84 Coast Road as: "A semi-detached pair, under a single hipped roof, of whitewashed roughcast with black-painted quoins and long-and-short window surrounds; the windows segmental-headed; not built to the normal Board of Works coastguard-house pattern" (UAHS Guide, p. 31).