1 Old Coastguard Cottages, Portballintrae, Bushmills, Co. Antrim, BT57 8RF

No. 1 Old Coastguard Cottages is an end-of-terrace, two-storey, two-bay rendered cottage built in 1874 as the last in a terrace of three, forming part of Portballintrae's coastguard station. It sits on the east side of the bay, between Beach Road and Lisanduff Avenue, prominently overlooking the coast. Together with its neighbours (Nos. 2 and 3 Coastguard Cottages) and a square watch tower to the north, it forms a well-maintained and coherent group of considerable architectural and maritime heritage significance, and represents an important and relatively rare surviving example of its type.

HISTORY

The coastguard station was constructed around 1875, replacing a number of earlier, smaller rubble coastguard buildings on the site. It first appeared in the valuation records in 1876 as a single building valued at £40, leased from Sir Francis MacNaughten of Dunderave House, Bushmills. The station originally comprised the square watch tower and five small dwellings for coastguards and their families. By the time of the 1901 Census, the station was occupied by five coastguards: the station officer, Henry C. Cross (aged 50, Church of Ireland), resided in the largest dwelling (now No. 3), while four boatmen occupied the smaller equal-sized dwellings. The two dwellings that now form No. 1 were occupied in 1901 by William Mount and Frank Bull, each with their families; the census building return classified the station as a first-class structure and recorded that each of these dwellings contained four inhabited rooms.

The station does not appear on Ordnance Survey maps until the third edition of 1904, which shows the terrace as an oblong-shaped building labelled "Coastguard Station." The same map confirms that the blackstone toilet block outbuildings to the rear had already been constructed by that date. The valuation remained largely unchanged until 1896, when it was slightly reduced to £39 10s.

In 1912 the Admiralty sold the station, ending its tax-exempt status. It was purchased by James McNeill in 1914, at which point the valuation was subdivided to reflect the five separate dwellings. The total value remained at £39 10s.: the watch tower was valued at £5, the station officer's residence at £8 10s., and each of the four boatmen's dwellings at £6 10s. The occupants of the two end dwellings in 1914 were William Frail and John Hutchinson. After 1920, no occupants were recorded, and only the lessor, Margaret McMullan (who had come into ownership in 1919), was noted. The Annual Revisions were cancelled in 1923 with no further changes recorded.

Early twentieth-century photographs confirm that the enclosed verandah was a later addition, likely added after the sale by the Admiralty in 1912. By 1972, the station had fallen into dereliction, as noted by W. Girvan, who described it as: "A terrace of six [sic] coastguard houses … the eastern end houses a three-storey tower, capped by a steeply pitched roof; above the arrow-slit windows of the ground floor is an oriel-bartizan, complete with machicolations (for pouring oil on troubled waters?), a feature repeated on the west end. Each house has a lean-to verandah. The whole is harled." A First Survey record from 1975 confirmed that the building was vacant and in a state of disrepair, with broken windows and the verandah sealed with rusted shutters. The station was listed in 1977, after which the derelict building was renovated: the former five boatmen's dwellings were converted into three modern cottages. The interiors were modernised, but the external façade was sympathetically restored and the original character of the Victorian coastguard station largely retained, including the conversion of the blackstone toilet blocks into outbuildings.

EXTERIOR

The building has a rectangular plan, with a single-storey slated enclosed verandah to the front and a two-storey projection to the rear. The roof is a hipped natural slate construction with blue/black angled tiles to the hips and ridges; the rear projection also has a hipped slate roof. There is a rendered chimney stack with a sandstone cap, and timber bargeboards to the gables. Rainwater goods are plastic, on overhanging eaves with exposed rafter tails; there is a cast-iron hopper to the rear. All external walling is painted roughcast render.

Windows throughout are 1/1 timber-framed sash with horns, set in slightly projecting smooth rendered reveals with flush chamfered painted sills. Those at first floor are segmental-headed; those at ground floor are square-headed unless noted otherwise. Windows to the rear projection are set in moulded architraves with painted sills. The verandah has tripartite timber casement windows. A gabled oriel window on corbels sits to the southwest.

The principal elevation faces northwest and is almost symmetrically arranged, with two windows at first floor above a full-width lean-to verandah. A panelled-and-glazed timber door, positioned slightly left of centre, is accessed by a single red sandstone step. To the right cheek of the verandah is a shallow timber-lined recess containing a window at its upper half.

The northeast elevation is abutted by the adjoining building (No. 2 Coastguard Cottages).

The southeast elevation has a two-storey projection to the centre, flanked at ground floor by windows to the left and right bays, with a square-headed window at first floor in the right bay. The projection itself has two windows at first floor above two diminutive 1/1 windows, with a three-panelled glazed timber door to the right.

The southwest elevation features a gabled box oriel window rising above the eaves line at first-floor level to the right, and a segmental-headed window at ground floor to the left.

SETTING

The cottage overlooks the bay of Portballintrae, situated between Beach Road and Lisanduff Avenue. To the front is a large lawned garden with gravel paths leading to the entrance doors. The garden is bounded to the road by a roughcast cement rendered wall with saddleback coping, with a modern steel latch-gate opening onto Beach Road. The southwest boundary is formed by a modern timber fence with a timber gate. A gravel driveway to the southwest leads to the rear yard, accessed through a whitewashed wall with soldier coping and square rendered piers with undressed stone caps, which support an original wrought-iron gate. To the rear are former toilet blocks of rock-faced blackstone with slated lean-to roofs, sandstone quoins, and red-brick surrounds to timber-sheeted doors. The rear boundary is an undressed blackstone wall.