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

115 Main Street, Bushmills, is a two-storey, two-bay mid-terrace house with a single wall-head dormer, built between 1834 and 1857, architect unknown. It was delisted on 2 June 2017, having previously been a listed building since 1980. It sits within the Bushmills Conservation Area on the west side of Main Street, set within a terrace row due south of Market Square, with the street running parallel to the Bush River. The neighbouring properties to either side are No. 117 Main Street (to the left) and Nos. 109–113 Main Street (to the right).

The building has a rectangular plan with a slated pitched roof, an unpainted rendered chimney stack to the south-east side, and a wall-head dormer added around 1914. The front (north-east) elevation is finished in a ruled and lined smooth render, painted, with painted timber boxed eaves, decorative pierced bargeboards, and uPVC guttering discharging to a painted cast iron downpipe to the right of the frontage. The roof is covered in natural slate to the front slope, with black clay ridge tile bedded in mortar. At ground floor level, the principal elevation has a single entrance doorway to the left containing a replacement timber panelled and glazed door, and a single window bay to the right containing a timber one-over-one sliding sash window. An identical sliding sash window appears in the wall-head dormer centred above at first floor. Window frames, masonry sills, bargeboards, and cast rainwater goods to the front elevation are all painted in a contrasting colour.

To the rear (south-west), the main building is abutted on the right side by a two-storey gabled return shared with No. 117, having a slated duo-pitched roof with clipped eaves, a cast iron downpipe, rough-dashed rendered walls, and a single window opening at first floor level. The remainder of the rear wall of No. 115, beyond the return, is in roughcast render, painted.

Internally, the staircase survives and provides first-floor access to both No. 115 and No. 117 Main Street, as well as to the later gabled return which the two properties share. There is little evidence of any other historic detailing internally.

The building's history is well documented. A structure on the site was depicted on the Townland Valuation Town Plan of around 1834, though it was not included in the Townland Valuations of 1835 as it fell below the £3 minimum rateable value threshold for inclusion. The property was first recorded with certainty in 1857, appearing on the second edition Ordnance Survey map and in Griffith's Valuation of 1859, which recorded a rateable value of £2 and 5 shillings and noted that the building was leased by William McNeill to a Ms. Catherine Douglas. Ownership passed to James McCallum, a local shopkeeper based at Nos. 109–113 Main Street, around 1874, and occupants changed frequently over the following decades. By the turn of the 20th century the house was occupied by John Mulholland, a local labourer. The 1901 Census of Ireland described No. 115 as a second-class dwelling of five rooms. The Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1902 recorded the property in its current layout with a minor outbuilding to the rear.

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

The 1972 Ulster Architectural Heritage Society guide to North Antrim described Main Street, Bushmills, in general 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." Nos. 115–117 were listed individually in 1980, though the properties continued to share internal space, with the dwelling at No. 115 extending at first floor over No. 117, which functioned solely as a ground-floor retail unit and was used as a butcher's shop in the 1980s. Both properties were subsequently included in the Bushmills Conservation Area when it was designated in 1992 to preserve the built heritage of the village, which has the highest concentration of listed buildings in the north-east of Northern Ireland.

Conservation work was carried out on No. 115 in 1987, including re-slating of the roof in salvaged natural slate, installation of cast iron rainwater goods, replacement of the front windows with new timber sliding sash frames, installation of modern casement windows with top-hung opening vents to the rear, and replacement of the ground floor with a ground-bearing concrete slab.

The front elevation's style is largely unaltered except for the replacement front door; however, the ground-floor tiled shop front to No. 117 dominates the principal façade and significantly alters both the proportions and the group value of the terrace. The rear return is considered to detract from the building's character. While No. 115 contributes some character to the conservation area, it was judged not to possess sufficient architectural or historic interest to be considered special, and was accordingly removed from the statutory list on 2 June 2017.