'Craig's'

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two-storey terrace shop with apartment over, originally a house built c.1740s, modernised and extended in the late 1950s. The property is set on the south side of Castle Street, to the west of Ballycastle town centre.

The asymmetrical front elevation faces N. To left of centre is a modern shop front with glazed door and large plate glass picture window. To the right is a similar window. Over the ground floor openings is a full-width plastic signboard with raised letters to the centre. To the first floor are two widely spaced windows with modern timber frames. All of the openings to the front of this building appear to date from the later 1950s. The front façade is finished in painted plain render.

To the rear there is a very large, modern-looking, roughly L-shaped, flat-roofed extension which covers most of what was formerly an open yard, and linking into a former outbuilding, to the S.

On the rear façade of the main section of the building there is an enlarged window (with PVCu frame), to the far left. To right of this is a doorway with modern, mainly glazed, timber door. To the immediate right of this is a very small window with PVCu frame. To the first floor there are three windows, all with PVCu frames. The façade is finished in painted roughcast.

The gabled roof of the main section is slated. The chimneystacks have been removed. Cast-iron and PVCu rainwater goods.

Historical information

A house of similar dimensions to the main section of the present building, (33ft x 26½ x 21½, with cellar of 16 x 13 x 6), is recorded on this site in the first valuation of January 1835.* As later documentation does not refer to demolition or any major structural changes, (outside of the addition of the extension and the changes to the fenestration), 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 development of the town in the 1740s. According to the present occupant, the building once served as the house for the gaoler of the gaol contained within the neighbouring former court / market house, itself probably dating from the mid 1700s.

In 1835 the occupants are listed as ‘The Misses McCook’, with the property including a ‘stable and forge’ to the rear, measuring 40 x 18 x 10½ . When the second valuation was carried out in late 1859, this particular outbuilding appears to have been replaced by three separately held structures, two measuring 5½yrds x 6 x 1(storey), with the third, 11 x 6 x 1. It is unclear whether these structures were occupied as outbuildings / workshops or dwellings; later evidence suggests they were outbuildings. The occupant of the main building, (which, incidentally, was in ‘bad repair’), at this date is recorded by the valuers as Hector McNeill, with John and Daniel Christie the immediate lessors. The two smaller buildings to the rear are recorded as vacant, with the leaseholders themselves using (?or occupying) the largest structure.

In 1867 a Robert McKillop took over the tenancy of the main building, with a William McAllister and John Dunbar renting the two smaller buildings to the rear. McKillop gave way to some ‘lodgers’ in 1876, with a John Mitchell listed as the tenant between 1895 and 1929. Mitchell also held one of the smaller buildings to the rear from 1889, with the other similar sized structure in the hands of an Archibald Coils [probably Coyles] from 1899 until 1913. In the latter year John Mitchell is noted as holding all parts of the property, with the valuers stating that the main building was in a ‘wretchedly dilapidated state’.

In 1929 three occupants are recorded, Mary Russell, Henry Hamilton and John Lamont. By 1935 a William Hamilton is listed as occupying the main building, with a William Johnston renting a ‘slaughter house in rere’ and a Benvento Bertucelli renting ‘offices and garden in rere’. In 1951 the lease of the whole property was acquired (or passed to) a Daniel Stewart, passing to an Alexander Stewart a few years later. The present owner acquired the property in the late 1950s, and shortly afterwards converted much of the ground floor to a shop and added the large rear extension.

[*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/12A/1/24 Valuers’ office notebook (1913)
25 PRONI VAL/12B/2/5a Annual valuation revision book, Ballycastle UD North and South Wards (1921-27)
26 PRONI VAL/12B/2/5b Annual valuation revision book, Ballycastle UD North Ward (1927-30)
27 PRONI VAL/12B/2/5c Annual valuation revision book, Ballycastle UD South Ward (1927-30)
28 PRONI VAL/3G/6/1/1-3 Valuation plan of Ballycastle, 1934-50
29 PRONI VAL/3B/1/5 First general revaluation of Northern Ireland, Ballycastle UD, 1935
30 PRONI VAL/3C/1/6 First general revaluation of Northern Ireland, 1936-57
31 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 HB05/15/015 First Survey report (10 October 1972)
2 EHS HB05/15/015 Photograph (?1972)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Two-storey terrace shop with apartment over, originally a house built c.1740s, modernised and extended in the late 1950s. The possible survival of the original roof structure aside, this property is, to all intents and purposes, a product of the mid to later 20th century.