'McKeague'

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two-storey terrace public house, originally a dwelling house, probably dating from the mid 1700s, with pub front of the late 1800s and late 20th / early 21st century alterations to the rear. The property is set on the south side of Castle Street, to the west of Ballycastle town centre.

To the left on the ground floor of the asymmetrical front elevation is the pub front. This consists of a timber sheeted door with rectangular fanlight, all encased with moulded pilaster jambs. To the right is a large window with four pane timber frame and acid-etched glazed, encased with identical jambs. To the right of the pub door is a former house doorway (which is now disused), with a panelled timber door with rectangular fanlight and jambs as before. Over the door and window is a painted signboard with projecting cornice.

To the right of the pub front are two relative small windows with horned timber sash frames and plate glass glazing. To the first floor are five identical, but unevenly-spaced windows. Between the second and third window there is an internally illuminated projecting pub sign, with a projection illuminated Christmas decoration between the third and fourth windows. The front façade is finished with painted plain render.

Much of the ground floor level of the rear elevation is taken up with a large, modern-looking single-storey flat-roofed extension, which to the NW merges with a two-storey gabled projection / return (which is probably considerably older). There is another, smaller, slightly older looking extension to the W of this.

There is a doorway and window to the S face of the larger extension to E, with another doorway and small window to the W face. This openings have either modern timber doors or modern timber frames (as do all the openings to the rear). The extension to the W has a doorway to its E face, whilst there is another doorway to the (s-facing) first floor level gable of the projection / return.

To the ground floor of the rear façade of the main section of the building (which is only exposed in the small gap between the two large extensions) there is a doorway. To the first floor there is a window to left of the projection, and another to right. The rear elevation is finished in painted roughcast, with a rough unpainted cement render to the extension to W.

The gabled roof of the main section of the building is slated and has two Velux windows to the rear. There is a rendered ridge chimneystack to the E end. The flat roof of the large extension to the E is felt covered, whilst that to the W has a shallow pitched roof covered in corrugated-iron. The covering of the roof of the gabled projection could not be seen. Cast-iron rainwater goods to front, uPVC to rear.

In the yard to the rear there is the badly dilapidated remains of a rubble and brick built one and a half-storey outbuilding, with a small single-storey shed attached to its N gable.

Historical information

A house of similar dimensions to the main section of the present building, (36ft x 27 x 17½), is recorded on this site in the first valuation of January 1835.* As later documentation, only refers to ‘improvements’, to the building, and not demolition or any major structural changes, (outside of the returns), we can confidently assume that the property of 1835, is substantially that we see today. As regards a date of construction, the 1835 valuers regarded the house as ‘old’ at that date, (grade ‘1C+’), so it is likely to have been 18th century, possibly, like much of Castle Street, dating from Hugh Boyd’s redevelopment of the town in the 1740s.

The occupant in 1835 is listed as a Mrs McKeever. By late 1859, when the second valuation was carried out, a John O’Neill, (possibly the man of the same name listed as a surgeon in Slater’s 1856 ‘Directory’), was in residence, with a Mrs Mary Edgar the immediate lessor. The building is described by the valuers as ‘in middling order’ and contained a ‘shop and three apartments below, four over and garrets’ with the ‘part including a shop sublet, but with an entrance in common’. The shop appears to have been sublet to a William Sharpe.

Sometime between 1859 and 1862, the building was ‘improved’. In 1871 a James McBride became tenant (occupying the whole property), followed by an Andrew Verdon (1873-76) and Jane Verdon, who appears to have remained there until 1922! The building appears to have contained a public house at least as early as 1888, for Jane Verdon is listed as a ‘spirit retailer’ in Bassett’s directory for that year. In 1922, the ancestor of the present owner acquired the lease.

The rear of the building has undergone significant alteration in recent years, with the addition of the large single-storey extension to the east. The extension to the west probably contains the fabric of a much older (mid 1800s) outbuilding (as it equates to an outbuilding shown on various OS maps), however, it has been much altered in recent times.

[*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 which buildings the valuers are referring. The writer has circumvented this problem however by adopting the somewhat involving 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 Taylor, George, and Skinner, Andrew, ‘Taylor and Skinner’s Maps of the Roads of Ireland, surveyed 1777’ (Dublin, 1778), Map 20 etc.
2 Linen Hall Library, Belfast, ‘A Map of County Antrim…by J. Lendrick’ (1780)
3 ‘Pigot & Co’s City of Dublin and Hibernian Commercial Directory (Manchester 1824)
4 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
5 PRONI OS/6/1/8/1 OS map, Co Antrim, sheet 8 (1832)
6 PRONI VAL/1B/135 First valuation, Ramoan parish (1834)
7 Lewis, Samuel, ‘Topographical history of Ireland’ (London, 1837)
8 ‘Slater’s National Commercial Directory of Ireland (Manchester, 1846)
9 ‘Slater’s National Commercial Directory of Ireland (Manchester, 1856)
10 PRONI OS/6/1/8/2 OS map, Co Antrim, sheet 8 (1856)
11 PRONI VAL/2B/1/28c Second valuation, Ramoan parish (1859)
12 PRONI VAL/12B/2/3a Annual valuation revision book, Ballycastle ED (1862-64)
13 PRONI VAL/12B/2/3b Annual valuation revision book, Ballycastle ED (1865-76)
14 Slater’s Royal National Commercial Directory of Ireland (Manchester, 1870)
15 PRONI VAL/12B/2/3c Annual valuation revision book, Ballycastle ED (1876-84)
16 PRONI VAL/12B/2/3d Annual valuation revision book, Ballycastle ED (1884-93)
17 PRONI VAL/12B/2/3e Annual valuation revision book, Ballycastle ED (1892/3-98)
18 Bassett, George Henry, ‘The Book of County Antrim’ (Dublin, 1888), pp.92-102
19 PRONI VAL/12B/2/3f Annual valuation revision book, Ballycastle ED (1898-1907)
20 PRONI VAL/12E/8/1/1-3 Valuation plans of Ballycastle (1898-c.1935)
21 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory’ (Belfast, 1905)
22 PRONI VAL/12E/8/2/1 Valuation plan of Ballycastle, c.1905
23 PRONI VAL/12B/2/3g Annual valuation revision book, Ballycastle ED (1908-21)
24 PRONI VAL/12B/2/5a Annual valuation revision book, Ballycastle UD North and South Wards (1921-27)
25 PRONI VAL/12B/2/5b Annual valuation revision book, Ballycastle UD North Ward (1927-30)
26 PRONI VAL/12B/2/5c Annual valuation revision book, Ballycastle UD South Ward (1927-30)
27 PRONI VAL/3G/6/1/1-3 Valuation plan of Ballycastle, 1934-50
28 PRONI VAL/3B/1/5 First general revaluation of Northern Ireland, Ballycastle UD, 1935
39 PRONI VAL/3C/1/6 First general revaluation of Northern Ireland, 1936-57
30 PRONI VAL/4B/1/12 Second General Revaluation of Northern Ireland, Ballycastle UD (1956-72)

Secondary sources
1 Brett, C.E.B., ‘Historic Buildings…The Glens of Antrim’ (Belfast, 1971), p.47

Other
references
1 EHS HB05/15/013 First Survey report (10 October 1972)
2 EHS HB05/15/013 Photograph (?1972)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A public house, originally a dwelling house, probably dating from the mid 1700s, with pub front of the late 1800s and late 20th / early 21st century alterations to the rear. The building is of an early date and retains its special architectural interest particularly in the front elevation's well detailed pub front.