Trocadero, 43 Main Street, Portrush, Co. Antrim, BT52 8BN

The Trocadero is a terraced two-bay three-storey rendered building on Main Street in Portrush, built around 1890 as one of three similar residential townhouses. The building was comprehensively remodelled in the early twentieth century with a projecting ground floor retail unit and entrance hall added around 1910, giving it its distinctive Art Nouveau appearance. It is now interconnected with the adjoining department store at No.45 (The White House), though it retains much of its rich internal fittings.

The building is rectangular on plan facing northeast, with a three-storey extension to the rear dating from around 1910 and a two-storey structure fronting Mark Street Lane. The pitched artificial slate roof features synthetic ridge tiles and four wall-head dormers spanning the entire elevation, with decorative timber bargeboards and finials. The rendered walling is painted with rusticated quoins to the front projection, and ogee-moulded iron guttering and uPVC rainwater goods are present.

The fenestration comprises various timber windows. Four segmental-headed window openings on the second floor dormers have projecting reveals, masonry sills, and single-pane timber sash windows with part-exposed sash boxes. The first floor has a large round-headed window opening to the left and a large square-headed opening to the right, both with moulded surrounds and keystones, fitted with replacement timber casement windows. The ground floor displays a large square-headed shop window to the right and an elliptical-headed door opening to the left with a canopy.

The principal timber doorcase is a particularly fine feature, comprising double-leaf panelled doors with formerly glazed upper panels, flanked by multi-pane sidelights and topped by a dentilled cornice and Art Nouveau fanlight. The surround has stop-chamfered moulding with colonettes, flanked by a pair of panelled Doric pilasters supporting large scrolled brackets which in turn support a canopy with ogee-moulded cast-iron guttering on corbels. The doors open onto a front tiled area with mosaic paving bearing the inscription 'The Trocadero'.

The east side elevation is abutted by the adjoining building at No.39-41. The rear elevation is abutted by the three-storey extension of around 1910, which has pebbledash rendered walling with large square-headed window openings containing tripartite timber casement windows with leaded and coloured glazing. The west side elevation is abutted by and interconnected to No.45. Behind the main building, a two-storey rendered structure fronts onto Mark Street Lane, with segmental-headed first floor window openings now blocked up.

The building's history is complex. It originated as a plot 31 feet wide by 121 feet long leased from the Earl of Antrim to Allen Dunlop between 1844 and 1849, with a three-storey Georgian-style terraced house erected there. An isometric perspective by Dan Hanna dated 1857 records it as a symmetrical three-storey townhouse with a pitched roof, front garden, and rear yard. Uniquely among the three properties in the terrace, this building had its front door opening to the right of the façade. From 1889 or before, it functioned as the Osborne Hotel, occupied by Mrs Jane Hurst. The property was numbered as No.98 Main Street at this time. By 1925 it had been renumbered as No.31 and was occupied by Black and Sons, who operated a restaurant there. In 1938 it received its final number as No.43, with the name Trocadero Ltd. first appearing in rateable value records. The Trocadero Restaurant operated under Black & Sons Ltd. from 1951, with its last recorded listing in 1966. The building's rateable value increased dramatically from £30 to £120 between 1920 and 1925, reflecting its conversion from hotel to restaurant use. The building now forms part of the adjacent department store and is partly used as storage and toy department.

The Trocadero is listed for its architectural interest in style, proportion, ornamentation, plan form, interior fittings, setting, and group value, as well as for its historical interest in authenticity, historic importance, age, and local significance.