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

68 Castle Street, Ballycastle

A plain three-storey terrace building of probable mid to later 18th-century construction, originally a house and now functioning as a shop. It is integrated with the neighbouring building to the west, though much altered, it retains significance as part of the town's streetscape.

The building sits on the north side of Castle Street, close to Ballycastle town centre. The asymmetrical south-facing front elevation displays a panelled door to the far left of the ground floor, with a half-panelled, half-glazed doorway to its right, followed by a large single-light shop window with roller shutter. A recent laminated signboard spans the doorways. The first floor has three unevenly-spaced windows with plain sash frames; the second floor has three similar but much shorter windows. The front elevation is finished in plain painted render.

The rear elevation, visible only from a distance, is quite different in character. The ground floor is entirely covered by a lean-to structure with rendered façade and corrugated asbestos roof. The window openings to the first floor have been blocked, while those on the uppermost level retain fragments of Georgian-paned sash frames. The rear elevation is finished in unpainted roughcast. The gabled roof is slate-covered with a rendered chimney stack to the west. The rainwater goods to the front appear to be entirely metal; those to the rear may be PVC but visibility was insufficient for certain identification.

The building's history is traceable through valuation records. The first valuation of December 1834 records an old house of similar dimensions on this site, occupied by C and R McCormick. The building likely dates from around 1740-70, when Ballycastle assumed much of its present form under the improving landlord Hugh Boyd. It may be one of the nine three-storey houses mentioned in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1835. By 1859, the property was occupied by Mary Woodside and comprised a shop and two small rooms below, four small rooms above, and two garrets. Woodside, listed as a straw and bonnet maker in Slater's 1856 Directory, remained resident until 1890. She was succeeded by Margaret Woodside, who occupied the property until the 1920s. Subsequent residents included John Henry, Alexander Stewart (1948-56), and Daniel Duncan (1956 to circa 1970s). The property became integrated with its western neighbour around 1980.