Spar Foodmarket, 109-113 Main Street, Bushmills, Co.Antrim

Former shop and lodging house, built between approximately 1834 and 1857, located at 109–113 Main Street on the west side of the main thoroughfare through Bushmills village centre, County Antrim, with the Bush River running to the west. The architect is unknown. The building sits within the Bushmills Conservation Area and forms part of a well-scaled terraced row of similar buildings, rising above its neighbours — No. 107 to the north and No. 115 to the south — and contributing prominently to the street frontage due south of Market Square.

The building is two storeys tall, three bays wide, and of rectangular plan. The roof is natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, and unpainted rendered chimney stacks with corbelled details below the cap rise above the roofline on both the south-east and north-west sides, though no chimney pots remain. A small conservation rooflight sits mid-span on the roof slope.

The principal elevation faces north-east and is finished in painted render. At first-floor level, three segmental arched window openings have moulded stucco architrave surrounds and contain timber sliding sash windows with one-over-one lights, set on a continuous sill course running the full width of the elevation. Toothed quoins at first-floor level on both sides of the front elevation are painted in a contrasting colour. Half-round painted cast-iron guttering runs along the front. At ground-floor level, the shopfront is concealed behind photographs printed onto vinyl-faced boards, with painted timber vertical boarding running the full length of the frontage in place of signage. Louvred vent grilles sit within a painted plinth band at the base on either side of the door. Exposed cills suggest the ground floor retains a symmetrical arrangement of a central door flanked by large windows.

Where the building rises above its neighbours on the north-west and south-east flanks, the side elevation walling is of unpainted rendered finish. The south-west rear elevation is also of unpainted rendered finish, two storeys tall. To the rear there are two small single-storey abutments: one with a lean-to corrugated metal roof set at ninety degrees to the right, and a taller lean-to to the left clad in corrugated asbestos sheet to both roof and walls. The remains of a gabled stone outbuilding stand parallel to the main building at the rear, with a red-brick and concrete-block lean-to abutting the south-west gable.

The building's history is well documented. An earlier structure occupied the site by around 1834, though the Townland Valuations of 1835 described it as old and dilapidated. The present building was constructed before 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 £7. At that time the building was leased by Hugh Lecky, a prominent local landowner, to Henderson Wilcock, who operated a lodging house from the premises. By around 1874 the site was occupied by James McCallum, a local shopkeeper who also purchased Nos. 109–119 Main Street outright. McCallum continued to reside there until his death in 1894, after which Florence Hale, a local draper, operated a draper's shop from the premises. The 1901 Census of Ireland classified the property as a first-class dwelling and shop consisting of nine rooms, with a store as its sole outbuilding. The Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1902 recorded the property in its current layout with a single outbuilding to the rear.

Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the rateable value was increased to £20, and the house and shop was noted as leased to Hugh Clarke by a Mr James Kennedy. Clarke became the owner around 1952 and leased the property to John Thompson — also occupant of the adjoining No. 107 Main Street — who used the building as a shop and stores. By the close of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), the rateable value had risen to £56. The building was subsequently used as a Spar supermarket from the 1970s until around 2000, when it fell vacant.

The building was listed in 1980 and included in the Bushmills Conservation Area, which was designated in 1992 to preserve the built heritage of a village that holds the highest concentration of listed buildings in the north-east of Northern Ireland. In 1972, the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society's guide to North Antrim described the buildings along Main Street in general terms as forming "a well-scaled street," noting that "many good doorways and shopfronts remain" and that "the unity of the street frontages must be maintained."