107 Main Street, Bushmills, Co.Antrim

107 Main Street, Bushmills, County Antrim

This is a two-storey, two-bay painted rendered mid-terrace house, built between 1834 and 1857, situated on the west side of Main Street in Bushmills village centre, with the Bush River to the west. The architect is unknown. The building sits within a terraced row of similarly scaled properties, with a comparably proportioned neighbour immediately to its north (No. 105 Main Street) and a larger former shop to its south (Nos. 109–113 Main Street). It lies to the south of the Market Square and falls within the Bushmills Conservation Area.

Architectural Description

The building has a rectangular plan and is of painted rendered construction throughout the front elevation, set on a painted plinth. The roof is natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, and there is an unpainted rendered chimney stack to the northwest side, topped with a single circular terracotta clay pot. Half-round painted cast-iron guttering discharges to a cast-iron circular downpipe at the left side of the front elevation.

The principal elevation faces northeast. There are two windows at ground floor level and two at first floor level, all currently concealed behind photographs printed on vinyl-faced boarding. The entrance door is positioned to the left side and is accessed directly from the paved footpath on Main Street. Painted masonry sills are present beneath the openings. Toothed quoins appear to the right side only and are painted in a contrasting colour. The southeast and northwest sides of the building adjoin the neighbouring properties.

To the rear, the southwest elevation is of two storeys. Abutting it to the right is a two-storey roughcast rendered rear return added around 1982. The southwest elevation of this return has a large opening at both ground and first floor levels: the ground floor opening is concealed with chipboard, while the first floor opening contains a timber casement window with two top-hung night vents.

Rainwater goods are a mixture of uPVC and cast-iron (to the northeast elevation). Windows to the rear return are timber casement; all front openings are currently concealed as described.

Historical Background

A building was recorded on this site on the Townland Valuation Town Plan of around 1834, but the Townland Valuations of 1835 described it as an old and dilapidated dwelling, indicating that the current structure is a later replacement. The present building was constructed prior to 1857, when it first appeared on the second edition Ordnance Survey map, and was recorded in Griffith's Valuation of 1859 with a total rateable value of £4. At that time the property was leased by Hugh Lecky, a prominent local landowner, to a Mr James L. Moore.

The building forms part of the wider 19th-century development of Bushmills village. The Bushmills Conservation Area Guide records that, while Bushmills was an established settlement before the end of the 18th century, the village was extensively rebuilt from the 1820s onwards by the MacNaghten family of Bushmills House, who had acquired the estate in 1787.

Occupancy of No. 107 changed frequently over the following decades. By the turn of the 20th century the house was inhabited by John McMichael, a local flesher who established a shop at the premises. The 1901 Census of Ireland described the property as a second-class shop and dwelling consisting of four rooms, with a stable, cowhouse and piggery as its sole outbuildings. The Ordnance Survey Town Plan of Bushmills of 1902 depicted the property in its current layout, recording a single outbuilding to the rear.

Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the rateable value was increased to £8 and 5 shillings, and the building was recorded as leased to a Ms Margaret McAllister by Messrs Joseph and William Cameron, the occupants of the adjoining No. 105. McAllister vacated the property around 1947, when a Mr John Thompson took possession. Thompson purchased the house outright around 1961 and continued to reside there at least until the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), by which time the total rateable value stood at £15.

In 1972, the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society's guide to North Antrim described the buildings along Main Street in Bushmills in the following 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."

No. 107 Main Street was listed in 1980 and subsequently included in the Bushmills Conservation Area, which was designated in 1992 to preserve the built heritage of a village that possesses the highest number of listed buildings in the northeast of Northern Ireland. Around 1982, the building underwent a renovation that included the renewal of its roof, the installation of new windows throughout, and the addition of the current rear return.

Setting

The property sits within a terraced row of similar-scaled buildings on the west side of Main Street, with views northward towards the Market Square. The street runs parallel to the Bush River. The building retains its modest proportions and contributes to the architectural unity and historical character of the Bushmills Conservation Area, notwithstanding the alterations to its original front openings and the later rear extension.