41 Ann Street, Ballycastle, Co Antrim, BT54 6AA

41 Ann Street, Ballycastle, is a 3-bay, 2½-storey house with basement and shopfront, probably built in the 1880s. It is a good early 20th-century example of a shop front in restrained style with some rococo decoration, and represents an important example in Ballycastle of the central recessed shop door with shop windows on either side typology, though its significance has been diminished by inappropriate alterations.

The ground floor comprises, from right, a 4-panelled entrance door to living accommodation with glazed screens on each side and rectangular fanlight. The shopfront features a central recessed shop door with glazed upper panel and brass push/pull handle. On each side are simple plain shop display windows with corner mullion and glazing returned into the entrance recess. A transome in line with the fanlight divides the display windows, neatly lining through the tops of the door frames and fanlights, with a transome also over the shop door. The window cill is low with decorative infill below, returned into the recess. The floor of the recess has tessellated tiles. On each side of the living accommodation door stands a broad pilaster, and on the extreme ends of the shopfront, including the domestic door, a decorative rococo-style pilaster carried up to form a stop to the coloured glass name fascia with gold lettering incorporated. A bold cornice sits above the name fascia. The front is constructed in hardwood, possibly iroko, and projects 500mm beyond the wall of the house.

At first floor are 3 double-hung sliding sash windows with 2 panes and segmental heads, more or less centred on the façade and evenly spaced. Each window has a moulded architrave. A moulded stringcourse crosses the façade and steps up over the window heads in a continuous band. Above this is a further straight moulded string or cornice course (in reality an ogee gutter) at the cill level of 3 double-hung sliding sash 2-pane windows directly over those below, which are carried up to form bold closely spaced gabled dormers. The front wall carries up to form dormer cheeks. Bargeboars are decorated with scalloped lower edges. Under the upper gutter is a thin frieze with gutter under, continuing along No. 43. Short lengths of downpipe drain water from the roof between dormers to the lower gutter. The roof is covered in natural slates, with chimneystacks at either end.

A back return extends to the rear, 2 storeys high including basement, with a galvanised fire escape at the end and a railed fire escape gangway providing access from the flat roof to the 1st floor of the main building. At 2nd floor level are 2 windows: 1 double-hung sliding sash 2-pane window and 1 escape door/window. The roof has 2 velux-type windows and is covered in natural slates. The house and shopfront maintains the building line of the terrace frontage at Ann Street.

The building has been in use as an optician's shop. Renovations were carried out in 1996. The property is located within a conservation area.