Former RUC Station, 96-98 Main Street, Bushmills, Co Antrim, BT57 8QD

Former RUC Station, 96–98 Main Street, Bushmills

This is a detached two-storey, five-bay neo-Georgian former police station, built around 1939 to designs by Thomas Francis O. Rippingham (c.1896–1964), who served as chief architect to the Northern Ireland Ministry of Finance. It stands slightly elevated and set back from the building line on the east side of Main Street, within the Bushmills Conservation Area, and is one of the most architecturally significant buildings within it. The building is of rectangular plan-form and is finished in roughcast render with a painted finish throughout.

Architectural Overview

The principal elevation faces south-west onto Main Street and is symmetrical. At ground floor level it is five bays wide, with three central bays set within a shallow breakfront containing three round-arched recesses, each housing a square-headed opening: a six-over-nine-light timber sliding sash window in the middle, and two flush six-panelled timber doors to either side. A continuous plat band connects these openings at impost level. The breakfront is flanked by further six-over-nine-light timber sliding sash windows. At first floor level there are three bays, aligned with the central ground floor bays, each with a six-over-six-light timber sliding sash window set on a continuous painted projecting sill course. The roof is a double-hipped slate roof with deep projecting eaves, a boarded timber soffit, and moulded cast-iron guttering to the front elevation discharging via a cast-iron hopper to a uPVC downpipe. A large rendered chimney stack rises from the north-west side, projecting above the ridge line with stepped lead flashing where it punctuates the eaves, and is adjoined by a slated chimney cricket. A further squat rendered and painted chimney stack is centred on the ridge. The rear slope of the roof has two cast-iron rooflights. Louvred metal vents are set at regular intervals just below the eaves line on both the front and rear elevations. All sash windows have horns and sit on painted masonry cills. The plinth, masonry cills, rainwater goods, and soffit are all painted in a contrasting colour.

Side and Rear Elevations

The north-west side elevation is asymmetrical. It contains a six-over-nine-light timber sliding sash window at ground floor and a six-over-six-light sash at first floor, both positioned toward the right side facing Main Street. The tall shouldered chimney stack already described rises from the centre of this elevation.

The north-east rear elevation is broadly symmetrical at first floor, where five bays each contain a six-over-six-light timber sliding sash window with a continuous cill band running directly below, returning to both side elevations. Through-window extract vents are fitted to the central window and the one immediately to its right, and the middle window has vertical metal bars. At ground floor level the fenestration is more irregular. To the far left there is a single-storey flat-roofed projection, abutted by a mono-pitched boiler house with a profiled metal roof and stainless steel extract flue; both have uPVC gutters and downpipes. Next to the flat-roofed projection, a square-headed door opening contains a solid flush timber door with multi-paned sidelights and a transom light, followed by two six-over-six-light timber sliding sash windows, a smaller blind opening between them, and a small six-paned casement window to the far right. All ground floor openings sit on a painted plinth. Moulded cast-iron guttering to the rear discharges to a square-section downpipe.

The south-east elevation is two bays wide and asymmetrical. At ground floor it has two timber sliding sash windows: a six-over-nine-light to the left and a six-over-six-light to the right. At first floor there is a single six-over-six-light timber sliding sash to the left side, aligned with the ground floor bay below, on the continuous projecting cill course described above.

Materials

The roof is natural slate with moulded cast-iron guttering and a mixture of cast-iron and uPVC rainwater goods elsewhere. The walls are roughcast render, painted. Windows are multi-paned timber sliding sashes throughout, with one fixed light to the rear elevation.

Setting

The building is elevated slightly above and set back from the building line of the adjacent terraced rows of houses and shops on the east side of Main Street. The site is bounded by rendered walling with painted concrete copings, topped by a high-security mesh perimeter fence supported on square metal posts. The entrance is approached via a flight of six concrete steps centred on the front elevation, with dwarf fir trees and a lawn to either side. The north-west side elevation faces onto a bitmac path running parallel to a shared alleyway leading to a service yard at the rear; the boundary wall steps up in height along this boundary. Both the north-east and south-east elevations face onto concrete hardstanding, enclosed by tubular metal guarding extending to handrails at concrete steps on the right. The rear boundary is formed by solid profiled metal security panels, beyond which a further lawned area is enclosed by mesh fencing and contains a single-storey telephone exchange building of similar neo-Georgian style, also with a double-hipped sprocketed roof, though finished with red tiles and half-round ridge tiles.

Historical Context

With the establishment of the Northern Ireland state in 1922, the newly formed Ministry of Finance appointed Rippingham as its official architect. Early in his career he was tasked with producing a standard design for a series of barracks for the also newly-formed Royal Ulster Constabulary, and between 1922 and the 1950s dozens of new stations were built throughout the six counties to his neo-Georgian template. The architectural historian Hugh Dixon described Rippingham's barrack design as the most outstanding application of the neo-Georgian style in Ulster, noting that the basic design, while having its own distinct identity, drew on earlier building types in the province: the combination of hipped roof with chimneys rising from the end walls looks back to the early 18th century, while the arched recesses of the front entrance and its flanking windows borrowed from the Regency and late-Georgian styles to give the façade, in Dixon's words, "a simple yet positive dignity." The design was adaptable in scale, ranging from three windows wide to eight or nine, and proved an environmental success, blending comfortably with older buildings along the streets of Ulster's towns or settling quietly into more isolated rural settings. Dixon considered the station at Seaforde, County Down, the most outstanding example in the series, though he noted that Bushmills is entirely typical of Rippingham's approach.

The First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) records the Bushmills barracks as having been constructed around 1939, at which point it was leased by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Northern Ireland, and valued at £55. By the close of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) the total rateable value had risen to £96. The building served the Royal Ulster Constabulary and subsequently the Police Service of Northern Ireland until 2012, when it was closed and put up for sale alongside 43 other stations across the province as part of cost-cutting measures. It has remained vacant and disused since that date.