66 Main Street, Bushmills, Co.Antrim

66 Main Street, Bushmills, County Antrim

This is a former house, now in use as a shop, built around 1834 as an end-of-terrace property on the south-east corner of Market Square, at the junction of Main Street and Woodvale Park. It was constructed at the same time as the adjoining No. 68 as part of the extensive rebuilding of the village of Bushmills carried out from the 1820s onwards by the MacNaghten family of Bushmills House, who had acquired the estate in 1787. The architect is unknown. Both the interior and exterior have been modernised, but the building retains external historic character to the street and contributes to the Bushmills Conservation Area, which was designated in 1992 to preserve the built heritage of a village that contains the highest number of listed buildings in the north-east of Northern Ireland.

The building is two storeys tall and two bays wide, with a smooth-rendered painted finish throughout. The roof is natural slate with a pitched profile, and uPVC rainwater goods are fitted to the front elevation.

The principal elevation faces south-west onto Main Street and is accessed directly from the paved footpath. At ground-floor level the full width of the elevation is occupied by a timber shopfront divided by fluted timber pilasters, with signage spanning above. A single entrance doorway sits to the left side, fitted with a timber and glazed door, and the timber-framed shop windows are divided vertically. At first-floor level there are two openings, each containing a one-over-one timber sliding sash window. Painted rendered corner quoins appear on the left side only.

The north-west gable end faces onto Market Square. It is finished in smooth painted render with painted corner quoins to the right side only and a painted plinth at the base. There is a single first-floor opening containing a timber sliding sash window. A rear return extends the full length of the site to the north-east, and the north-west side of this return is blank.

To the north-east, at the rear, the building is abutted by a large two-storey extension with a slated pitched roof running the full length of the site. The north-east gable end of this extension has a recessed entrance doorway at ground-floor level fitted with a timber door. At first-floor level there is a metal-framed casement window with an extraction duct piercing the upper pane and a glazed vent to the lower section. uPVC rainwater goods serve the rear elevation and extension. The south-east side elevation is joined to the neighbouring No. 68.

The earliest documentary record of the building is the Townland Valuations Town Plan of around 1834, which shows Nos. 66 and 68 Main Street in their current layout, though it notes that No. 66 originally possessed a coach arch at ground-floor level — a feature that no longer survives. The Townland Valuations of around 1835 classified the building as a 1A-class structure, meaning it was new or nearly new, slated, and of good quality. It was recorded as measuring 22 feet by 28 feet and standing 19 feet in height, valued at £5, and occupied as a dwelling and shop by a Mr. James Wallace.

By the time of Griffith's Valuation in 1859, the value had risen to £5 and 10 shillings and the building was leased to a Mr. Frances Irwin by John Richmond, a prominent local farmer. The land to the rear of Nos. 66 and 68 was known at this period as Richmond's Court, comprising a number of minor dwellings, as recorded on the Annual Revisions Town Plan of 1909 to around 1935. Frances Irwin continued to occupy No. 66 until around 1874, when the building was subdivided into two separate dwellings, each valued at £4.

Occupants changed frequently over the following decades. By the turn of the 20th century the building was shared by Robert Kennedy, a local bookmaker who ran a shop from the premises, and a Mrs. Margaret Sherman. The Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1902 depicts the building in its current L-shaped layout with no outbuildings on the site. The 1901 Census of Ireland described Kennedy's portion as a second-class dwelling and shop consisting of four rooms, while Sherman inhabited two rooms, presumably on the upper floor.

Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland, covering 1936 to 1957, the value of No. 66 was increased to £16. Records from this period note that a Mr. Edward Kennedy had purchased the site outright from the MacNaghten estate by at least the 1930s. By the end of the Second General Revaluation, covering 1956 to 1972, the building was occupied by a Mr. Robert Kennedy and its total rateable value stood at £18 and 10 shillings.

In 1972 the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society's guide to North Antrim described the buildings along Main Street in Bushmills in the following 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. 66 was listed in 1980 and subsequently included within the Bushmills Conservation Area upon its designation in 1992.