89 Main Street, Bushmills, Co.Antrim

89 Main Street, Bushmills, County Antrim

This is a two-storey, two-bay, painted rendered mid-terrace house built prior to 1834, forming part of the extensive early-19th-century reconstruction of the village of Bushmills. It sits on the west side of Main Street, on the south side of the village centre, with the Bush River lying to the west. The property is adjoined on its south-east side by No. 91 and on its north-west side by No. 87 Main Street, and its principal elevation faces north-east, directly onto the Main Street footpath, with views northward towards the Market Square.

The building has a rectangular plan with a pitched natural slate roof to the front, black clay ridge tiles, and a rendered chimney stack to the north-west side. Cast-iron half-round guttering and a circular cast-iron downpipe serve the front elevation. The front elevation is painted rendered, two bays wide on both ground and first floor levels. All front windows are replacement 6-over-6 timber sliding sashes with exposed box frames. At ground floor level, the principal entrance has a coloured uPVC panelled door set within a uPVC frame, with a plain glazed transom light above, positioned to the right of a single window bay. Two window bays are arranged across the first floor, the right-hand bay aligned over its ground-floor counterpart. To the rear, a substantial two-storey extension is finished in pebble-dashed render with a fibre cement pitched roof. Access to the rear was limited at the time of survey; where visible, the rear return included a set of uPVC sliding doors at first-floor level reached by an external timber staircase, with uPVC rainwater goods throughout the rear elevation.

The history of the property is well documented. The Bushmills Conservation Area Guide records that the village was substantially rebuilt from the 1820s onwards by the MacNaghten family of Bushmills House, who had acquired the estate in 1787. Numbers 89 and 91 Main Street were originally constructed as a single two-storey, four-bay dwelling. The Townland Valuation Town Plan of around 1834 depicts the building as a single rectangular structure with a large outbuilding to the rear. The Townland Valuations of 1835 record the building as a Class 1A property — that is, new or nearly new — measuring 31.6 feet by 23 feet and standing 16 feet in height, with a store and stable to the rear. It was valued at £7 and 6 shillings and occupied by a Mr Robert Taylor, who used it as both a private dwelling and a shop.

Little change had occurred by the mid-19th century. Griffith's Valuation of 1859 records the building, now leased by Hugh Lecky to a Mr Alexander Kane, at a slightly increased value of £8. Occupants changed frequently over the following decades. Around 1890, the original four-bay dwelling was subdivided into its current form as two separate two-bay properties. Following subdivision, No. 89 was valued at £4 and 10 shillings and leased by Hugh Lecky to a Mr James Hargreaves. The 1911 Census of Ireland records the occupant as Samuel Speers, a general labourer, living with his wife Ellen. The census building return described No. 89 as a second-class dwelling of four rooms, with a turf house as its sole outbuilding.

During the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the house was occupied by James Cochrane, a local motor mechanic, and revalued at £6 and 10 shillings. The Second General Revaluation (1956–72) records that the Cochrane family purchased Nos 89–91 outright around 1963 and continued to reside at the site, where they also operated a garage, until at least the 1970s. The 1972 Ulster Architectural Heritage Society guide to North Antrim described the buildings along Main Street in general terms as forming "a well-scaled street," noting that while no individual building other than the former Courthouse merited separate mention, "the unity of the street frontages must be maintained." Numbers 89–91 were listed together as a single property in 1980. The Bushmills Conservation Area was designated in 1992 to preserve the built heritage of the village, which holds the highest concentration of listed buildings in north-east Northern Ireland.

Around 1987 both properties underwent extensive renovation, including the installation of cast-iron rainwater goods and the replacement of sliding sash window frames throughout. The building retains its original domestic proportions to the street alongside its neighbour No. 91 (listed separately), though alterations — including the replacement plastic front door and the large pebble-dashed rear extension — detract from its overall integrity. At the time of the most recent survey, No. 89 remained in residential use as a separate dwelling from No. 91.