2 Coastguard Cottages

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single-storey cottage, in red brick with sandstone dressings, in a mixed Victorian style, laid out on an L-shaped plan with a projecting porch in the angle with the front return to the left, built as one of a terrace.

Main entrance faces north-east; entrance facade four openings wide. Doorway recessed in centre of single-bay flat-roofed porch with segmental arch in buff sandstone; segmental-headed panelled wooden door painted black, replacement; buff sandstone blocking course on porch. Side wall of porch: two windows set in coupled round red sandstone heads; semi-circular headed wooden fixed lights, single-pane; red sandstone cill. PVC downpipe, replacement inappropriate.

To right of porch, wall one window wide, smooth rendered, painted white, not original, inappropriate; PVC guttering, inappropriate replacement for cast iron original; window rectangular, timber sliding sash vertically hung, 6 over 6, with horns, replacement; roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses; chimney on party wall with adjoining house to right, plain unmoulded rustic brick with red pot, all inappropriate replacement work.

To left of porch, wall of front return has two windows matching those of adjoining house to left and symmetrically arranged around central axis through hipped roof. First window to left rectangular sliding sash as previous, except head a flat arch in red sandstone with buff sandstone keystone; second window to left semi-circular headed timber vertically hung, sliding sash with horns, one horizontal glazing bar to each sash, set in semi-circular red sandstone arch with buff keystone; both windows accurate replacements of originals. Rubble blackstone plinth with red sandstone weathering, abutted by low red brick wall, piers and gates, recent additions, inappropriate. Hipped roof of slates, as previous, on oversailing sandstone eaves course; PVC guttering. Chimney to left extremity at cross ridge on party wall with adjoining house: original moulded red brick with sandstone base weatherings and projecting string, partly renewed; cream earthenware pots.

Rear facade: original rear wall of cottage now covered by recent single-storey flat-roofed extensions in modern idiom, with plastic single and double doors set in white painted rendered walls. PVC guttering and downpipes. Rendered back boundary wall, painted white.

SETTING: The house is one of a terrace formed of four other similar cottages and one two-storey house, all set back a short distance from the main road and facing the sea. Small garden to front enclosed by a front boundary wall of rubble basalt and a modern red brick boundary wall to side which contains inappropriate modern iron gates set between red brick piers.

Historical information

Built as one of a terrace of five coastguard cottages in 1873, to the design of the architect William Gray of Belfast. They first appear on the OS map of 1903.

References - Primary

1. Irish Builder and Engineer, 1 October 1873.
2. OS Map 1903, Co Antrim 35.

Secondary

1. F. Hamond, Antrim Coast and Glens Industrial Heritage (HMSO, Belfast, 1991), p 90 (but an erroneous date is given there).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
V. Authorship
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

With its adjoining cottages this forms an attractive mid-Victorian group of former coast guard cottages which retains its original character and most of its original features on its entrance front.