Survey Data
Reg No
15700738
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Social
Original Use
Coastguard station
In Use As
House
Date
1870 - 1880
Coordinates
321496, 160024
Date Recorded
27/09/2007
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached five-bay two-storey coastguard station, built 1874-5, on a rectangular plan with single-bay two-stage "watch tower" (east) on a square plan. Occupied, 1901. Vacant, 1911. Closed, 1922. Hipped slate roof; pyramidal slate roof ("watch tower"), clay ridge tiles, rendered red brick Running bond chimney stacks having stringcourses below corbelled stepped capping supporting terracotta or yellow terracotta tapered pots, and cast-iron rainwater goods on exposed timber rafters retaining cast-iron downpipes. Part creeper- or ivy-covered roughcast walls on lichen-spotted cut-granite chamfered cushion course on tuck pointed snecked rubble stone plinth with concealed red brick flush quoins to corners. Square-headed window openings with cut-granite sills, and red brick block-and-start surrounds framing two-over-two timber sash windows. Square-headed window openings to rear (south) elevation with cut-granite sills, and concealed red brick block-and-start surrounds framing two-over-two timber sash windows. Set in landscaped grounds including terraces centred on flights of five moss-covered concrete steps.
Appraisal
A coastguard station erected to a design examined (1874) by Enoch Trevor Owen (c.1833-81), Assistant Architect to the Board of Public Works (appointed 1863), representing an important component of the nineteenth-century built heritage of north County Wexford with the architectural value of the composition, one recalling the contemporary Kilmichael Point Coastguard Station (see 15700741), confirmed by such attributes as the rectilinear plan form; and the diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression with those openings showing vibrant red brick dressings. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior: however, the piecemeal introduction of replacement fittings to the openings has not had a beneficial impact on the character or integrity of a coastguard station making a pleasing visual statement overlooking Ballymoney Strand.