8 Mill St., Cushendall, Co.Antrim

8 Mill Street, Cushendall, County Antrim

This terraced rendered shop occupies a prominent position on the south-east side of Mill Street in the centre of Cushendall village. It was built around 1830 — possibly slightly earlier, in the late 18th or very early 19th century — and is one of the oldest surviving buildings on the street. It forms part of a continuous terrace alongside its immediate neighbours at Nos 6 and 10–12 Mill Street, all of which are among the earliest structures on this part of Mill Street and were already recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832.

The building is two bays wide and two storeys tall with an attic, and is irregular on plan, facing northwest. A two-storey rear return and a large single-storey rear extension are attached behind. The pitched roof is clad in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, and carries two steel skylights on the front pitch. A shared rendered chimneystack with terracotta pots sits on the south-west party wall. Cast-iron guttering is carried on iron drive-through brackets. The external walls are finished in painted ruled-and-lined cement render.

The front elevation is two bays wide across two storeys. On the ground floor, the central feature is a square-headed shop display window with a concrete sill and a timber fixed-pane display window incorporating coloured glazed margin lights. To either side of this is a square-headed door opening: the left-hand door gives access to the upper floor and has a flat panelled timber door with a glazed fanlight above; the right-hand door gives access to the retail unit and has a glazed timber door with a leaded glazed sidelight and fanlight. The entire ground floor is surmounted by a replacement timber fascia and a dentilated lead-lined cornice framed by shaped brackets, with gilt lettering reading "NUMARK PHARMACISTS PUTTING YOUR HEALTH FIRST". Above the ground floor, the window openings have painted masonry sills and replacement 6-over-6 sliding timber sash windows with ogee horns and exposed sash boxes.

The north-east side is abutted by No. 6 Mill Street and the south-west side by No. 10 Mill Street. The gabled two-storey rear elevation, together with its large single-storey rear extension, contains a single square-headed opening with a bipartite timber sliding sash window.

Historically, this is one of the earliest domestic buildings in Cushendall. The majority of the two- and three-storey buildings along Mill Street were erected in the first half of the 19th century under the direction of Francis Turnly, the village's proprietor. Turnly had travelled to China in 1796, where he accumulated a fortune of around £75,000, and in 1801 used this money to purchase the estate of Newtownglens from the Richardson family for £24,000, subsequently renaming the settlement Cushendall. At the time of purchase, the village consisted of little more than a number of insignificant cabins, a mill and a bridge. Growing tourist traffic passing through on the way to the Giant's Causeway prompted the development of the village into a coastal resort, with the construction of hotels such as the Glens of Antrim on Shore Street and numerous commercial properties. Francis Turnly has been described as an eccentric character who "effected extraordinary improvements in buildings and roads on his property."

No. 8 Mill Street first appears with certainty in Griffith's Valuation of 1859, which valued the building at £7 and recorded it as leased by the Turnly family to a Mr. Norton Alexander. The occupants changed frequently over the following two decades until 1882, when Hugh Reid, a local labourer, took possession. Reid remained at the property until around 1908, when it passed to Robert Mort, a local farmer. The 1911 Census Building Return described No. 8 as a second-class dwelling with three inhabited rooms, and noted a number of rear outbuildings including a stable, two cow houses, a piggery, a dairy and a potato house. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the building's rateable value rose to £20; the occupant at that time was a Mr. Robert McFetridge, and a local garage was recorded as operating from the ground floor. McFetridge purchased the property outright from the Turnly estate in 1967, and by the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) the total rateable value stood at £38.

In 1972 the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society described Mill Street as "an outstandingly good street by Ulster standards; there is almost nothing to jar the eye," and specifically identified Nos 8–12 Mill Street as "probably 18th century and the oldest buildings in the street … Georgian glazed." The buildings along Mill Street were subsequently included in the Cushendall Conservation Area in 1975 — only the second conservation area to be designated in the province — and in that year Cushendall was also selected as one of Northern Ireland's four pilot schemes for conservation during the European Architectural Heritage Year. No. 8 Mill Street was listed in 1976.

Around 1999 the building underwent a renovation that included the reconstruction of the ground-floor shopfront, the addition of the modern rear extension for use as stores, and the replacement of all windows and entrance doors. Despite these internal and ground-floor alterations, the historic external proportions and character of the front facade are retained. The building contributes to the historic setting of Mill Street and carries group value with its neighbours along the terrace.