74 Castle Street, Ballycastle, Co Antrim, BT54 6AR

A 2½-storey, 3-bay corner building on Castle Street and Clare Street in Ballycastle, dating from the mid-18th century, possibly built by Charles Gray in 1740, though definitively recorded in the 1834 valuation. The building is likely one of the 127 two-storey houses mentioned in the 1835 Ordnance Survey Memoirs, constructed during the period around 1740-70 when the town developed under the improving landlord Hugh Boyd.

The Castle Street elevation has been substantially renovated with a modern shopfront. The ground floor comprises a blank wall with signage, a central aluminium-framed glazed door, and large single-pane display windows on either side with panelled pilaster framing, topped by a deep name fascia with framed cornice and stopped ends. The first floor contains three horizontally enlarged modern windows, each subdivided into five panes. A continuous corbel course with chamfered uPVC gutter runs across the elevation. The walls are smooth rendered and painted, with rusticated quoins at the corners. The roof is steeply pitched at 45 degrees, which is unusual for the street, with natural slate, plaster barges, and wide chimney stacks on each gable. A metal flue projects from the upper middle of the roof slope, with a Velux-type window above it, and a projecting fluorescent sign adorns the façade.

The gable to Clare Street presents a more historic appearance. The ground floor has a vertical window off-centre on the gable, with the sill almost at footwalk level. The first floor contains a modern window placed off-centre, with another window lighting the attic floor positioned almost directly under the chimney stack. The back return fronting Clare Street has two doorways side by side, each with a simple rectangular fanlight. To the right are three windows arranged vertically, likely lighting stair landings, and to the left of the doorways are two vertical windows at first floor. The walls are rendered and painted as the Castle Street elevation, with a slated roof and two chimney stacks.

Beyond the back return is a single segmented arch gateway without a roof, linking to a random rubble stone building. The rear of the return is unrendered blackstone (basalt) construction with large sandstone quoins. A central modern door with a blocked brick window is centrally placed. The remainder of the rear consists of corbel brackets supporting cast iron guttering. A second return extends over the chip shop with a flat roof between it and an alley.

The building makes a positive architectural statement at the corner of Castle and Clare Streets, maintaining the building lines of the streetscape. Despite substantial renovation and modern commercial use, the overall form of the building, with walls possibly dating to the mid-18th century, remains characteristic of the period.