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

Three Old Coastguard Cottages is an end-of-terrace two-storey rendered coastguard cottage with a square watch tower, built in 1874 as part of a terrace of three. It is located on the east side of Portballintrae bay in County Antrim.

The building has an L-shaped plan with a two-storey watch tower positioned at the re-entrant angle to the north and a two-storey square projection to the northeast. The principal elevation faces northwest and features a half-hipped gabled front abutted by a later single-storey slated enclosed verandah. The hipped roof is covered in natural slate with angled tiles to the hips and ridges. Rendered chimneystacks rise above with sandstone caps. Pierced timber bargeboards with decorative timber brackets line the overhanging eaves, which are supported on a continuous narrow timber band. Plastic rainwater goods are fitted to exposed rafter tails. The walling is painted roughcast render on a contrasting plinth.

Windows throughout are 1/1 timber sash with horns and flush sills. Most are segmental-headed on the first floor and square-headed on the ground floor. A box oriel window on corbels appears on both the rear elevation and tower. The verandah features tripartite timber casement windows with contrasting smooth reveals.

The principal northwest elevation comprises the half-hipped gabled bay with two first-floor windows and a full-width verandah at ground level. To the left, flush with the verandah, stands the square watch tower. This has a pyramidal roof with a plain finial. Box oriel windows light the northwest and northeast faces at first-floor level, while a square-headed window is set in the southwest face. Three diminutive rectangular openings are positioned on the ground floor at the northwest face, and a segmental-headed two-panelled glazed timber door accesses the northeast face via a concrete step.

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

The setting overlooks Portballintrae bay, positioned between Beach Road and Lisanduff Avenue. A large lawned garden occupies the front with gravel paths leading to the entrance doors. The garden boundary to the road comprises a roughcast cement rendered wall with saddleback coping and a modern steel latch-gate opening to Beach Road. Modern timber fencing with a timber gate encloses the property to the southwest. A gravel driveway entrance to the southwest leads to the rear yard, accessed through a whitewashed wall with soldier coping. Square rendered piers with undressed stone caps supporting an original wrought-iron gate flank this entrance. Former toilet blocks constructed of rock-faced blackstone stand to the rear, with slated lean-to roofs, sandstone quoins and red-brick surrounds to timber-sheeted doors. An undressed blackstone wall bounds the rear of the property.