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

3 Old Coastguard Cottages is an end-of-terrace, two-storey, two-bay rendered cottage with a square watch tower, built in 1874 as one of a terrace of three. It stands on the east side of the bay at Portballintrae, overlooking the water between Beach Road and Lisanduff Avenue, and forms part of what was originally Portballintrae Coastguard Station, constructed around 1875.

The building has an L-shaped plan, with a two-storey watch tower set into the re-entrant angle to the north and a two-storey square projection to the northeast. The front gable is half-hipped and is abutted by a later single-storey enclosed verandah with a slated roof, added after the station was sold by the Admiralty in 1912. The main roof is hipped natural slate with angled tiles to the hips and ridges. Rendered chimneystacks have sandstone caps. Pierced timber bargeboards run along the overhanging eaves, which are supported on decorative timber brackets on a continuous narrow timber band. Rainwater goods are plastic and sit on exposed rafter tails. The external walls are painted roughcast render on a contrasting plinth.

Windows throughout are 1/1 timber sash with horns and flush sills, with projecting sills to the rear elevation and the square projection. First-floor windows are segmental-headed; ground-floor windows are square-headed unless otherwise noted. There is a box oriel window on corbels to the rear elevation and to the tower. The enclosed verandah has tripartite timber casement windows with contrasting smooth rendered reveals.

The principal elevation faces northwest and consists of the half-hipped gabled bay with two windows at first-floor level and the full-width verandah at ground floor. To the left, flush with the verandah, is the square watch tower. The tower has a pyramidal roof with a plain finial. It features a box oriel window to the first floor on both the northwest and northeast faces, and a square-headed window to the first floor on the southwest face. At ground-floor level on the northwest face there are three diminutive rectangular openings. On the northeast face a segmental-headed two-panelled glazed timber door is accessed via a concrete step.

The southeast elevation, which serves as the entrance front, has a gabled oriel window rising above the eaves line on the left, set over a window at ground floor. To the right is a glazed and timber-sheeted door with a transom light. The right bay has a window to the left and a diminutive window opening to the right. The northeast elevation has a window at first-floor level and is abutted to the right by the two-storey square projection. This projection has a pyramidal roof and segmental-headed windows to three sides at ground floor and to the northwest face at first floor. The southwest elevation is abutted by the adjoining building.

The setting is generous and well-maintained. A large lawned garden to the front has 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 enclosed by a modern timber fence with a timber gate. A gravel driveway to the southwest leads to the rear yard, which is accessed through a whitewashed wall with soldier coping and square rendered piers with undressed stone caps that 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. These outbuildings have been converted for ancillary use, retaining their original character. The rear boundary is formed by an undressed blackstone wall.

The building's history is well documented. The Coastguard Station first appeared in valuation records in 1876, shortly after completion, and was recorded as a single building valued at £40, leased from Sir Francis MacNaughten of Dunderave House, Bushmills. The station does not appear on Ordnance Survey maps until the third edition of 1904, which depicted the row as an oblong-shaped building captioned 'Coastguard Station' and also showed that the blackstone toilet block outbuildings to the rear had been constructed by that date. The value was slightly decreased to £39 10s. in 1896.

Originally the station comprised the square watch tower and five small dwellings for coastguard personnel. The 1901 Census recorded the station as occupied by five coastguards and their families. The station officer was a Mr Henry C. Cross, aged 50 and a member of the Church of Ireland, who resided in the largest dwelling — the unit now constituting No. 3 — while the boatmen occupied the smaller dwellings. The 1901 census building return classified the station as a first-class structure and recorded that Cross's dwelling contained seven inhabited rooms.

In 1912 the station was sold by the Admiralty. The watch tower, however, was retained by the Admiralty due to its prominent position and remained its property at the close of the valuation period; No. 3 is accessed both via a rear entrance and through a door on the northeast elevation of the tower. The row was purchased by a Mr James McNeill in 1914, at which point the valuation was subdivided to reflect the five separate dwellings. The total value remained at £39 10s., with the watch tower valued at £5, the station officer's residence at £8 10s., and each of the four boatmen's dwellings at £6 10s. The occupant of the officer's dwelling in 1914 was a Mr William Douglas. After 1920 no occupants were recorded, with only the lessor Margaret McMullan noted, having come into ownership in 1919. The Annual Revisions were cancelled in 1923 without further change.

Early 20th-century photographs confirm that the enclosed verandah was a later addition, likely made after the sale of 1912. Writing in 1972, the architectural historian Girvan described the station 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.' Girvan noted that the station had fallen derelict by 1972, and the First Survey record of 1975 confirmed it lay vacant and in a state of disrepair, with broken windows and the verandah sealed with rusted shutters.

The station was listed in 1977 and subsequently underwent renovation in the late 20th century, during which the former five boatmen's dwellings were converted into three modern cottages. The interiors have been modernised, but the external façade has been sympathetically restored and, together with the conversion of the blackstone toilet blocks into outbuildings, the original Victorian character of the station has been maintained.

Portballintrae, a small fishing village on the North Coast, was identified as a strategically suitable location for a coastguard station owing to the shelter offered by its horseshoe-shaped bay and fishing harbour. A number of smaller rubble coastguard buildings predated the current station. As a prominently sited, well-maintained, and largely intact example of a Victorian coastguard station — a relatively rare surviving building type — the terrace makes a significant contribution to the architectural and maritime heritage of this part of the coastline.