69 Main Street, (W H Gillanders), Bushmills, Co.Antrim

69 Main Street (W H Gillanders), Bushmills, County Antrim

This is a two-storey, three-bay, painted rendered mid-terrace house with a shop front and coach arch, built prior to 1834 as part of the extensive rebuilding of Bushmills in the early 19th century. The architect is unknown. It sits on the west side of Main Street, on the south side of the village centre, with views northward to Market Square and the Bush River running parallel to the west. The building is listed and lies within the Bushmills Conservation Area, designated in 1992 to protect what is recorded as the highest concentration of listed buildings in north-east Northern Ireland.

The principal elevation faces north-east and opens directly onto the paved footpath of Main Street. The rendered front is painted smooth, with cast-iron rainwater goods. Three bays wide, the ground floor bays align with those above. At ground floor level, the central entrance doorway has a six-panel painted timber door with a plain glazed transom light over. To the left is a tripartite shop window comprising 1/1 timber sliding sashes with horns. To the right, a large coach archway contains a pair of traditional-style painted timber gates with vertical sheeting and metal fittings. At first floor level, three openings each contain 1/1 timber sliding sash windows on painted stone sills. The roof is fibre cement pitched, with unpainted rendered chimney stacks to the south-east and north-west sides.

To the rear, the south-west elevation faces into a large enclosed yard. The rear wall is of unpainted render and has two first-floor window openings — one above the coach archway to the left and one above the rear extension to the right — both fitted with uPVC casement windows. A single-storey rendered extension with a mono-pitched fibre cement roof abuts the ground floor of the main rear elevation on the right side, shared with the adjoining property. The rear extension's walling is unpainted render with exposed brick at the west corner. On the north-west face of the rear extension there are window openings to either side of a single entrance doorway: the windows are timber casements, with the left-side window being top-hung, and the doorway contains a painted flush door set within a plain architrave surround. uPVC rainwater goods serve the rear elevation and extension. The south-east side of the building is joined to the neighbouring property at Nos. 71–73 Main Street, and the north-west side adjoins No. 67 Main Street.

The building has a notably rich social and ownership history. The Townland Valuation Town Plan of around 1834 recorded it as a terraced structure with a coach arch and a large outbuilding to the rear. The Townland Valuations of 1835 classified it as a 1A-class structure — that is, a new or nearly new slated building — measuring 27 feet by 28 feet and standing 19 feet in height, with an initial assessed value of £9 and 5 shillings. At that time it was occupied as a dwelling by a Mr John Moore, with a store and stable as out-offices to the rear. The building's construction was part of the broader rebuilding of Bushmills led from the 1820s by the MacNaghten family of Bushmills House, who had acquired the estate in 1787.

By the time of Griffith's Valuation in 1859, the building's value had risen to £12 and 10 shillings and it was leased by the MacNaghten family to the Reverend William Oliver, minister at the local Presbyterian Meeting House to the south of the village. Reverend Oliver continued to reside there until around 1868, when the property passed to a Mr Patrick McKinney. Around 1883, a Mr John McIlroy occupied the house and established a public reading room on the upper floor. The Bushmills Reading Room operated from the premises until McIlroy's death in 1888, after which the house was occupied by a Ms Anne McMaster. At the turn of the 20th century the property was in the hands of Samuel Dean, a local builder. The 1901 Census of Ireland described it as a second-class dwelling consisting of eight rooms. Around 1904 it was occupied by Samuel Forsythe, a local watchmaker and jeweller who ran a shop from the premises; Forsythe remained until his death in 1927, when the property passed to a Mr William McMullen. The First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) records that McMullen did not reside at the address but leased it to tenants, with the assessed value standing at £13 and 10 shillings, later raised to £28 in 1956 when the building was purchased outright by Samuel Kennedy, a local merchant who converted it to use as a shop and stores. Ownership passed to Charles and Eileen Buckley in 1970, by which point the total rateable value stood at £32.

The building was listed in 1980. A significant renovation took place in 1987, which included the addition of cast-iron rainwater goods, the installation of new sliding sash window frames, and the addition of the current tripartite shop front at ground floor level. More recent alterations include the large mono-pitched extension to the rear and the introduction of uPVC windows to the rear elevations, which detract from the historic character of the building. Nevertheless, the property retains its historic proportions, character, and group value as part of the unified terrace frontage along Main Street. A 1972 Ulster Architectural Heritage Society survey described the 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."