117 Main Street, Bushmills, Co. Antrim, BT57 8QB

117 Main Street, Bushmills, is a two-storey, single-bay, rendered and painted mid-terrace building, originally constructed as a dwelling house between approximately 1834 and 1857, and now used as a ground-floor shop. The architect is unknown. It sits on the west side of Main Street within the Bushmills Conservation Area, in a terrace row of similar-scaled buildings set parallel to the Bush River, to the south of Market Square, between No. 119 to the left and No. 115 to the right.

The building has a rectangular plan and a slated pitched roof with black clay ridge tiles bedded in mortar. A wall-head dormer, added around 1914, sits above the principal north-east-facing elevation. An unpainted rendered chimney stack with two circular red clay pots rises from the north-west side. The front elevation has a ruled and lined rendered finish, painted, with decorative pierced bargeboards and painted uPVC rainwater goods. The ground-floor shop front — the dominant feature of the façade — has a tiled surround framing a large single-pane timber-framed window and a timber door with glazed top and bottom panes, and significantly alters the original proportion and character of the elevation. A painted timber cornice moulding is retained above the signage board. Within the wall-head dormer above, there is a timber sliding sash window with a masonry cill, painted in a contrasting colour.

To the rear south-west elevation, the main building is abutted by a two-storey gabled return to the left side, shared with No. 115, which has a slated duo-pitched roof with clipped eaves, cast iron downpipe, and rough-dashed rendered walls with a single window opening at first-floor level. To the right side there is a lower flat-roofed abutment, also associated with No. 115, and a detached flat-roofed outbuilding with painted roughdash rendered walls within the rear garden. Both side elevations are adjoined to neighbouring properties. Rainwater goods to the south-west return are cast iron, painted. Internally, very little historic detailing survives; the staircase has been removed, and the first floor is accessed through the adjoining No. 115.

The site had a building on it as early as the 1830s, though the Townland Valuations of 1835 recorded that structure as already old and dilapidated. The present building was in existence by 1857, when it appeared on the second edition Ordnance Survey map, and was recorded in Griffith's Valuation of 1859 with a total rateable value of £2 and 5 shillings. It was initially leased by William McNeill — also the lessor of the adjoining Nos. 115 and 119 — to a Daniel Campbell. Bushmills itself was extensively rebuilt from the 1820s by the MacNaghten family of Bushmills House, who had acquired the estate in 1787.

Ownership passed to James McCallum, a local shopkeeper from Nos. 109–113 Main Street, around 1874, and occupants changed frequently in subsequent decades. By the turn of the 20th century the house was occupied by James McCaughan, a local carpenter. The 1901 Census of Ireland classified it as a second-class dwelling consisting of four rooms, and the Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1902 showed no outbuildings or rear extensions at that time.

Around 1914, No. 117 was combined with the adjoining No. 115 to form a single larger property, and the dormer windows were likely added at this time; the rateable value of the combined two-storey, two-bay building was raised to £9 and 10 shillings. The premises were then occupied by William McCurdy, who operated a shop from the ground floor of No. 117. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the combined value of Nos. 115–117 was raised to £13, with the building leased by Hugh Lecky, a prominent local landowner, to a Mary Simpson. Around 1951 the premises were taken over by Robert Horsburgh, a newsagent, who remained there at least until the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), by which time the total value stood at £27.

In 1972, the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society's guide to North Antrim described the buildings along Main Street in the following terms: "A well-scaled street. Many good doorways and shopfronts remain, although there is the usual profusion of signs. While no building apart from the former Courthouse is worthy of individual mention, the unity of the street frontages must be maintained." In 1980, Nos. 115 and 117 were listed individually, though the buildings continued to share internal space; No. 117 consisted solely of a ground-floor retail unit and was used as a butcher's shop during the 1980s. Conservation work carried out in 1987 included reslating the roof in natural slate, the addition of cast iron rainwater goods, and the installation of new timber sliding sash window frames. The building and the wider street were subsequently included in the Bushmills Conservation Area, designated in 1992 to preserve the built heritage of a village that holds the highest number of listed buildings in the north-east of Northern Ireland.

The cumulative effect of the removed staircase, the dominant tiled shop front, the obscured rear elevation, and the various later extensions means the building was judged not to be of sufficient architectural or historic interest to be considered special, and it was delisted on 2 June 2017.