3 Coastguard Cottages, Ballygalley, Larne, Co Antrim, BT40 2QY

3 Coastguard Cottages, Ballygalley, Larne, Co Antrim

This is a single-storey mid-Victorian coastguard cottage built in 1873 as part of a terrace of five similar cottages, designed by architect William Gray of Belfast. The cottage forms an attractive group with its adjoining buildings and retains its original character and most of its original features on the entrance front.

The building is constructed in red brick with sandstone dressings in mixed Victorian style, laid out on an L-shaped plan with a projecting porch in the angle between the main wall and front return to the right. The entrance faces north-east and the entrance facade is four openings wide.

The porch is single-bay with a flat roof. The doorway is recessed at its centre, set within a segmental arch in buff sandstone. The original segmental-headed panelled wooden door is painted white, with a buff sandstone blocking course on the porch. The side wall of the porch contains two windows set in coupled round red sandstone heads, with semi-circular headed timber fixed lights (single-pane), red sandstone cills, PVC downpipe and hopper.

To the left of the porch, the front wall is one window wide. A rectangular timber sliding sash window, vertically hung with 6 over 6 panes and horns, is painted white and set under a flat arch head in red sandstone with buff sandstone keystone and red sandstone cill. To the right of the porch, the wall of the front return is similar, with two windows symmetrically arranged around the central axis through the ridge of the hipped roof. The first window to the right is a rectangular sliding sash matching those previously described. The second window to the right is a semi-circular headed timber sliding sash, vertically hung with horns and one horizontal glazing bar in each sash, set in a semi-circular red sandstone arch with buff keystone.

The roof is of Bangor blue slates in regular courses with an oversailing sandstone eaves course. The main chimney to the left sits just behind the ridge, coupled with the adjoining house's chimney, constructed in moulded red brick with original cream earthenware pot. A second chimney to the right sits at the cross ridge of the return, shared with the adjoining house to the right, also in moulded red brick with sandstone weathering to base and projecting string course, with original cream earthenware pots. The rubble blackstone plinth has red sandstone weathering. Original guttering and downpipes survive, though some have been replaced with PVC.

The rear facade has been significantly altered by a recent flat-roofed extension with a fixed light to a timber window on a low red brick wall and PVC guttering. The original rear wall of the cottage is now covered by this extension. The rear return consists of basalt rubble with lean-to roofs of Bangor blue slates in regular courses; windows in this area are covered by overgrowth. The yard is paved with modern replacement brick and provides direct access to the rear of number 4, with which the cottage is now combined in one building.

The cottage is set within a terrace of five similar coastguard cottages and one two-storey house, all positioned a short distance back from the main road and facing the sea. In front of the terrace is a communal area, part gravelled and part grassed, bounded by a low stone front boundary wall of rubble basalt.

The cottages were designed by William Gray of Belfast and first appear on the Ordnance Survey map of 1903. The building is of group value as part of the terrace, and of local historical interest for its role as former coastguard housing and as an example of the work of architect William Gray.