59-61 Main Street, Portrush, Co. Antrim, BT56 8BN

Three-storey two-bay terraced commercial premises with accommodation over, built around 1900 and located on the west side of Main Street in Portrush town centre. The building is square on plan with a two-storey return and extension to the rear.

The principal northeast-facing elevation features a two-storey canted bay on the left and a window to each floor on the right, above a projecting double shop-front at ground floor. The shop-front is the building's most distinctive feature, executed in the Art Nouveau style and relatively well-preserved. It comprises a central recessed porch flanked by plate-glass windows framed by slender colonettes topped by ogee spandrels detailed with ivy leaves on painted render stall risers. The porch is fully glazed with printed geometric tiles to the floor and contains an original timber door with a large plate glass panel over a timber panel, brass pull handle, and a transom light above. A modern timber fascia with painted lettering is topped by an ornate cast-iron balustrade with consoled ends. A second modern timber door with a large plain transom light sits set back to the left of the shop-front, also with printed geometric tiles to the floor. To the left of this is a modern entrance door.

The walling is painted smooth render. Windows to the upper floors are replacement uPVC with projecting painted sills and a continuous sill course to the canted bays; the shop-front employs plate glass. The pitched roof is of natural slate, hipped over the canted bay with angled-ridge tiles and cast-iron half-round rainwater goods on projecting eaves.

The southeast elevation is abutted by an adjoining building. The southwest elevation is fully abutted by the two-storey return, which is itself further abutted by a modern extension. An enclosed flat-roof garage fronts the alley to the southwest. The northwest elevation is abutted by an adjoining building.

The setting is street-fronted to the west side of Main Street, with an enclosed yard to the rear accessed via Mark Street Lane.

The building first appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1853, and it is possible that the current structure retains some fabric from this earlier building, though the plan had radically altered by the first town plan of 1896. The property was further altered in 1908 to create two separate shops. Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64 describes it as a house and outbuildings with a 32-foot frontage, valued at £18 and occupied by Miss Mary Morrow, leased from Patrick Black. In 1905, James W McCallum, a fruit and fowl dealer, took over the premises. By 1908, the property had been converted into two shops valued at £19 and £12 respectively, the smaller being temporarily sublet. The 1911 census records James W McCallum, fruiterer and poulterer, living at the five-room second-class shop and dwelling with his wife. In 1928, the building was purchased for £2,500 by Peter G Ross, and £900 was spent on improvements, resulting in a significant rise in valuation to £41 in 1929. At that time, the accommodation comprised a confectionery and tobacconists shop, reception, kitchen and scullery on the ground floor; a drawing room, bathroom, WC and servant's bedroom on the first floor; and three further bedrooms on the second floor. The building was listed in 1977, at which time the first survey photograph showed the shop operating as Ross's tobacconists. The premises is now in use as a gift shop.

The building reflects the commercial boom in Portrush at the turn of the twentieth century. It is one of the few remaining traditional shop-fronts in the town and contributes to the historic character of Main Street through its relatively domestic scale and architectural quality, despite some modernisation to the upper floor accommodation.