McKinley & Clarke, 72 Castle Street, Ballycastle, Co Antrim, BT54 6AR

McKinley & Clarke, 72 Castle Street, Ballycastle, is a pleasing early 19th-century shopfront and house in Georgian style with good store buildings along Clare Street. A building has probably existed on this site from around the 1740s, but the present structure most likely dates from the early 19th century and has retained its detail remarkably well.

The main building on Castle Street is 3 bays wide, 2 storeys high, with a shopfront and long back return, forming a corner building. The shopfront to the right comprises a display window subdivided into 3 vertical panes with a narrow vent on top, a panelled front shop door with a small porch and fanlight, a narrow pier, and a panelled door to the house without fanlight. A name fascia with painted lettering sits over the display window and doors, with a cornice above. A double sliding sash 12-pane window with exposed sash boxes runs across the lower storey, protected by a very decorative cast iron railing on the cill—practical detailing that recalls busy market days. The gradient of Castle Street means this window cill sits close to ground level. At first-floor level, there are 3 sliding sash 12-pane windows with exposed sash boxes, widely spaced. A half-round cast iron gutter is fixed on a corbel course. The wall has a smooth rendered plinth painted with rusticated quoins at both ends, returned on the gable. The roof is natural slated with a Velux rooflight and a chimney stack at each end. The gable has a single first-floor sliding sash 12-pane window, off-centre, with wall finishing matching the front wall, featuring a deep plinth and rusticated quoins. There are no bargeboards, with rendering taken up to under the slate edge.

Along Clare Street is a back return consisting of 2 parts. The first is a 2-storey smooth rendered and painted building with a central gateway with a 3-centre arch, a large window on each side (one partially bricked up), and 3 sliding sash vertical windows at first-floor level with the centre one smaller. It has a slated roof. Beyond this is another store, 2 storeys and 3 bays long, with an off-centre gateway with small shuttered windows on each side. At first-floor level are 2 single doors, very widely spaced, with a small window between. Over one door a hoist beam projects from a dormer. The walls are roughcast and unpainted, with a natural slate roof. Two chimney stacks rise from the ridges. Both buildings present reasonable fronts to Clare Street.

The shop interior is well preserved for detail, layout, and presentation of goods. Clare Street was originally a place of artisans, originally called Nailor's Row, though little evidence of this survives now apart from a ruinous shop front, formerly a barber. The owner carries on a hardware business and resides on the premises. Repairs were carried out in 1985 and 1988 using NIHE grants, during which the roof was reslated and the front renovated and painted, with W J Savage as the architect.