Coastguard Cottages, 18 Belfast Road, Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim, BT38 8BU

Coastguard Cottages, Belfast Road, Carrickfergus

A group of mid-nineteenth century coastguard cottages built circa 1864, located to the south of Belfast Road, Carrickfergus. Set parallel to the road with small gardens to the rear, the group possesses historic interest due to its maritime association within Carrickfergus, though alterations have diminished its architectural merit.

The principal building is an attached two-bay two-storey terraced former coastguard cottage, also built circa 1864, positioned as the west end-terrace of a seven-house group. It follows an L-plan with a single-storey lean-to entrance porch to the west. The roof is hipped natural slate with blue and black clay ridge tiles, cogged brick eaves, and few cast-iron downpipes remaining; most rainwater goods have been replaced with square-profile uPVC. Three roughcast rendered corbelled chimneystacks are present—one to the east party wall and two at the west elevation—each topped with decorative clay pots.

The walls are roughcast rendered throughout. A cogged brick string course with smooth rendered platband runs across the north and west elevations only, with a smooth rendered plinth at the base. Windows are predominantly timber casements with painted masonry cills.

The principal west elevation is abutted by a single-storey extension with slated lean-to roof positioned off-centre to the left. The exposed section to the right contains two 6/6 timber casements at first floor and a single diminished casement at ground floor. The north elevation, facing the Belfast Road, contains two windows at ground floor and three at first floor. The east gable is abutted by the neighbouring property. The south rear elevation features a two-storey projecting bay to the left with hipped roof detailed as the main block. The exposed section contains a single 6/6 timber casement window to each floor and a narrow 1/1 timber casement to the re-entrant angle at first floor. The projecting bay itself contains 6/6 timber dipartite casements at ground floor and a 5/10 timber casement at first floor. A single-storey lean-to extension with slated roof abuts the east elevation of the projecting bay, with a replacement entrance door and window to its right. The west entrance porch contains a single 1/1 window to its west elevation, a larger window to the right cheek, and a replacement segmental-headed glazed panelled timber door to the left cheek.

The property is set parallel to Belfast Road, accessed from the north with parking to the west and garden to the south. It is bounded to the road-edge by a roughcast rendered wall with saddleback coping and separated from the remainder of the terrace by a hedge. Two garages stand to the rear.

The Coastguard Station is first recorded in the Valuation Revision book of 1861–94, leased from J. Bowie with a ground rent of £36, succeeding an earlier station at Governor's Place, Carrickfergus. The town plan of Carrickfergus dated 1860 shows the buildings added in pencil at a later stage (date unspecified). The cottages appear on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1902, captioned 'Coastguard Station'. A 1991 survey states the station remained in use until at least 1945 and is now in private ownership, recently refurbished as dwellings. The survey describes a two-storey terrace of six houses with a larger house set at right angles at the west end, noting various additions have been made to the rear wall during recent refurbishment. The terrace is harled, with uncertainty regarding whether original construction was brick or basalt. Decorative features include stone and diagonally-set brick stringing below first-floor window sill level, with further decorative brickwork along the eaves and chimney corbels.