9 BRIDGE ST., CUSHENDALL, Co Antrim

9 Bridge Street is a terraced, four-bay, three-storey rendered former hotel and townhouse, built around 1895 as an extension to the adjoining No. 11 Bridge Street, which had itself been erected around 1890 as Chard's Temperance Hotel. Together the two buildings formed a single hotel enterprise and retain strong group value as a result of their shared history.

The building is L-shaped on plan, facing southwest, with a full-height lean-to extension to the rear. The pitched roof is covered with replacement natural slate and black clay ridge tiles. Rendered, profiled chimneystacks rise at either end, with some terracotta pots surviving on the southeast stack. The eaves feature a corbelled course with replacement steel guttering and a steel downpipe. External walling is finished in painted replacement ruled-and-lined cement render, left unscored and unpainted to the rear.

Window openings are square-headed throughout, with replacement concrete sills. The principal windows are replacement 1/1 timber sliding sash windows with ogee horns; replacement timber casement windows are fitted to the rear. On the southwest front elevation, the ground floor has been modernised with an enlarged shop display window and a glazed door, spanned by a timber fascia and awning. A further square-headed door opening to the right contains a replacement timber panelled door opening directly onto the street. The first floor carries 1/1 timber sliding sash windows, with windows of similar design but diminishing in scale to the second floor. The northwest side is abutted by the adjoining No. 11 Bridge Street. The three-storey rear elevation, together with the three-storey lean-to rear extension, has square-headed window openings with concrete sills and replacement timber casement windows.

The building forms part of a continuous terrace lining the northeast side of Bridge Street. To the rear there is a small paved yard enclosed towards the rear access lane by an original two-bay, two-storey building constructed of rubblestone and red brick, with a pitched natural slate roof, a red brick chimneystack, and blocked-up openings at ground floor level.

The hotel's history is closely bound up with Cushendall's development as a popular seaside resort and stopping-off point for tourists travelling along the Antrim coast road during the 19th century. The 1901 Ulster Town Directory described Cushendall's hotels as "comfortable and well conducted," noting the village as "an excellent centre for making excursions from to view the far-famed scenery of the Antrim Coast." Historical records show that three houses were demolished in 1887 to make way for the construction of Nos. 9–11 Bridge Street. No. 9 was first recorded in the Annual Revisions in 1895, valued at £14, at which point it was leased by the Turnly family to a Mr. Henry Chard, a retired English Naval pensioner who lived with his wife Mary on High Street. Henry Chard died in 1904, when the property passed to Mary Chard. By the time of the 1911 Census the hotel was being administered by their daughter Catherine Chard, and was recorded as a first-class hotel comprising 21 rooms, with a range of rear outbuildings including a stable, two cow houses, a piggery, a boiling house, and a store. The ground floor also housed a general grocer's shop. The Annual Revisions continued to record Nos. 9 and 11 as separate buildings, maintaining No. 9's valuation at £14 until 1929.

Catherine Chard died in 1922 and the hotel ceased operating during the 1920s. By the 1930s both buildings were occupied by a Joseph Spence, who converted the premises into a café and entertainment hall rather than continuing the hotel use. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the combined value of Nos. 9–11 was assessed at £50. The two buildings were divided back into separate properties in 1956, when a local butcher, Archibald Kinney, took possession of No. 9 and converted it into a dwelling and offices with a ground-floor shop unit, resulting in a revaluation to £30. Under the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) the value rose to £32. Kinney purchased the building outright from the Turnly estate in 1967 and was still operating a butcher's shop from the premises at the time of the second survey.

The Ulster Architectural Heritage Society's 1972 survey of the Glens of Antrim described Nos. 9–11 Bridge Street as "similar tall three-storey stucco houses with dentils at the eaves, and Regency-style glazing bars." Bridge Street was subsequently included in the Cushendall Conservation Area in 1975 — only the second conservation area to be designated in the province, and in the same year the village was chosen as one of four pilot schemes for conservation in Northern Ireland during European Architectural Heritage Year. No. 11 was listed in 1976. In 2005 both Nos. 9 and 11 underwent extensive internal and external renovation, including the refurbishment of the ground-floor retail units, conversion of the upper floors into apartments, restoration of the roof, and replacement of the rainwater goods. These works included the replacement of the original Regency-style glazing bars with the plain 1/1 sashes now in place.