Blacksod Point Coastguard Station

Detached nine-bay two-storey coastguard station, designed 1866; built 1866; extant 1897, with single-bay two-storey higher advanced "watch tower" on a square plan. Occupied, 1911. Renovated to accommodate continued private residential use. Replacement hipped artificial slate roof retaining sections of slate finish; replacement pyramidal artificial slate roof to "watch tower", clay ridge tiles, rendered chimney stacks having corbelled stepped capping supporting terracotta or yellow terracotta tapered pots, and replacement uPVC rainwater goods on tooled cut-granite eaves retaining sections of cast-iron rainwater goods including cast-iron octagonal or ogee hoppers and downpipes. Lime rendered walls on tooled cut-granite chamfered plinth with tooled cut- or hammered granite flush quoins to corners; rendered ruled and lined surface finish to side (north-west) elevation. Square-headed window openings including square-headed window openings in bipartite arrangement (first floor) with cut-granite sills, and tooled cut-granite block-and-start surrounds framing replacement casement windows retaining some six-over-six (ground floor) or four-over-four (first floor) timber sash windows. Interior including (ground floor): living room retaining cast-iron Classical-style chimneypiece; (first floor): bedrooms retaining cast-iron Classical-style chimneypieces. Set back from road in unkempt grounds.

A coastguard station erected to a design examined (1866) by Enoch Trevor Owen (c.1833-81), Assistant Architect to the Board of Public Works (appointed 1863), representing an important component of the mid nineteenth-century maritime architectural heritage of Contae Mhaigh Eo [County Mayo]. However, while the elementary form and massing survive intact, the piecemeal substitution of the original fabric has not had a beneficial impact on the external expression or integrity of a coastguard station making a pleasing visual statement overlooking Cuan an Fhóid Duibh [Blacksod Bay].