48-50 Castle Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Plain, rendered, two storey terrace house of probable 18th century construction with small unfussy 19th century shop front. The property is set on the N side of Castle Street, to W of Ballycastle town centre.

Front elevation faces S and appears to have originally had a rough symmetry, but this has been upset by the insertion of the shop front. Slightly to the left of centre is the house doorway which consists of a recessed modern panelled and glazed door with plain rectangular fanlight and simple moulded surround (the other house openings to front have similar surrounds). To the left of the doorway is a window with recessed Georgian paned sash frame (6/6) and late Victorian looking decorative cast iron cheval-de-fris. Some of the window panes have bulls-eyes. To the right of the doorway is the small shop front, which consists of a panelled and glazed door (to left) and a single light fixed frame window, all encased with simple pilasters with a [?]plastic signboard over with projecting cornice. To the first floor three unevenly spaced windows (in line with the ground floor openings), similar to that on the ground floor but slightly smaller and without cheval-de-fris of course.

The front façade is finished in lined render and painted. The gabled roof is covered in artificial ‘slate’ (to front at least). Rendered chimney stack to W. Metal rw goods.

The archway and the floor above it to immediate W of this house appears to have once belonged to the property (in the mid 1800s at least), it now appears to belong to no.46.

Historical information

The first valuation of December 1834* records an old (grade ‘1C+’) house of similar dimensions to the present on this site, then occupied by a Denis McAuley and including a ‘bake house’ at the rear. As the later valuations do not record any major changes to the main property (apart from the addition of the small section over the archway to west and the undoubted insertion of the shop front that is) we can assume that the 1834 house is that we see today. The building is undoubtedly one of the 127 two storey houses mentioned in the OS Memoirs of 1835, and like many of the properties within Castle Street may date from c.1740-70, when the town assumed much of its present form under improving landlord Hugh Boyd. Denis McAuley is listed as one of three bakers living in Castle Street (then called ‘Main Street’) in Pigot’s and Co’s Directory of 1824.

In the 1859 valuation the occupant is recorded as a Denis Black. By this stage the property also incorporated the ‘part over [the] archway’ to the west side, which now appears to belong to no.46, and contained a ‘shop, kitchen and room below, 5 over and garrets [with] one [room] in return’; the valuers also tell us that at that point there were ‘ten small houses now building at the rear of this house by Mr Black’, a grouping subsequently known as ‘Castle Place’.

Denis Black (who may be the man of the same name listed as a tailor in Slater’s Directories of 1846 and 1856) remained in residence until 1872, though the shop was rented by an Alexander McAllister from at least 1864. John Darragh is recorded as the next occupant of both house and shop (1876-84), then Matthew Workman (1884-?c.88), Hester Black (?c.1888-98), and William James Caldwell 1898-1908. In 1898 the rateable valuation of the property dropped from £9-15-0 to £6-10-0, perhaps suggesting that the archway and room over was been acquired by the neighbouring building at this point.

William James Caldwell was succeeded by W.J. Hanna who appears to have lived there until 1925. Afterwards a Patrick Maguire is recorded as resident, then Edward McCormick (1926-?c.1932), Robert Devenney (c.1932-47) and Leslie Legg (1947-57+), with the shop occupied by W.P. O’Brien (1926-44) and Patrick Duffin, followed by the householder Leslie Legg in 1947.

The shop which appears to latterly served as a butchers, is currently vacant (2003).

[*Note on primary sources- Though Ballycastle has its full compliment of valuation books dating back to 1834, the earliest extant valuation plan of the town (indeed the earliest large scale plan) is that dating from 1898. This means that though the first and second valuations (of 1834 and 1859 respectively) present the usual detailed accounts of properties throughout the town, bereft of their contemporary plans it is almost impossible to discover exactly to which buildings the valuers are referring. The writer has circumvented this problem however by adopting the somewhat involved method of reading the records backwards- i.e. taking the more recent (mid 20th century) valuations and tracing each building back from these, using the 1898 map as a marker along the way.]

References- Primary sources
1 ‘Pigot & Co’s City of Dublin and Hibernian Commercial Directory (Manchester 1824)
2 OS Memoirs, Parish of Ramoan, 1831-39, reprinted in ‘Ordnance Survey memoirs of Ireland…’ ed Angelique Day, Patrick McWilliams and Noirin Dobson (Belfast, QUB, 1994), p.92 etc
3 PRONI OS/6/1/8/1 OS map, Co Antrim, sh 8, 1832
4 PRONI VAL/1B/135 First valuation, Ramoan parish, 1834
5 Samuel Lewis, ‘Topographical history of Ireland’ (London, 1837)
6 ‘Slater’s National Commercial Directory of Ireland (Manchester, 1846)
7 ‘Slater’s National Commercial Directory of Ireland (Manchester, 1856)
8 PRONI OS/6/1/8/2 OS map, Co Antrim, sh 8, 1856
9 PRONI VAL/2B/1/28c Second valuation, Ramoan parish, 1859
10 PRONI VAL/12B/2/3a-g Annual valuation revision books, Ballycastle ED, 1864-1921
11 ‘Slater’s Royal National Commercial Directory of Ireland (Manchester, 1870)
12 PRONI VAL/12E/8/1/1-3 Valuation plan of Ballycastle, 1898-c.1935
13 PRONI VAL/12E/8/2/1 Valuation plan of Ballycastle, c.1905
14 PRONI VAL/12B/2/5a-c Annual valuation revision books, Ballycastle UD, 1921-31
15 PRONI VAL/3G/6/1/1-3 Valuation plan of Ballycastle, 1934-50
16 PRONI VAL/3B/1/5 First general revaluation of Northern Ireland, Ballycastle UD, 1935
17 PRONI VAL/3C/1/6 First general revaluation of Northern Ireland, 1936-57

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Plain, rendered, two storey terrace house of probable 18th century construction with small unfussy 19th century shop front. Modernised interior and inapropriate signage have reduced its arcitectural and historical character.