Trocadero

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Terraced two-bay three-storey rendered building, built c.1890 with projecting ground floor retail unit and entrance hall c.1910. Rectangular on plan facing northeast with three-storey extension to rear c.1910 and two-storey building fronting onto Mark Street Lane. Forming part of a terrace of three similar buildings and interconnected to No.45 (The White House HB03/10/018A).

Pitched artificial slate roof with synthetic ridge tiles and four wall-head dormers spanning the entire elevation. Decorative timber bargeboards and finials with uPVC rainwater goods, ogee-moulded iron guttering to the front projection. Painted rendered walling with rusticated quoins to the front projection. Various timber windows.

Four segmental-headed window openings to the second floor dormers with projecting reveals, masonry sills and single-pane timber sash windows with part-exposed sash boxes. To the first floor is a large round-headed window opening to the left, large square-headed opening to the right, both having moulded surrounds with keystones and replacement timber casement windows. Large square-headed display window to the ground floor and an elliptical-headed door opening to the left with canopy. Timber doorcase comprises double-leaf panelled doors with formerly glazed upper panels flanked by multi-pane sidelights topped by dentilled cornice and Art Nouveau fanlight. Stop-chamfered surround with colonettes flanked by a pair of panelled Doric pilasters supporting large scrolled brackets in turn supporting the canopy with ogee-moulded cast-iron gutter on corbels. Doors open onto front tiled area with mosaic to the door stating; ‘The Trocadero’.

East side elevation abutted by adjoining building No.39-41 (HB03/10/018C).

Rear elevation abutted by three-storey extension, built c.1910. Pebbledash rendered walling with large square-headed window openings having tripartite timber casement windows with leaded and coloured glazing.

West side elevation abutted by and interconnected to adjoining building No.45 (HB03/10/018A).

Setting
Forming part of a terrace of three similar buildings lining the southwest side of Main Street in the commercial centre of Portrush. Two-storey rendered structure to the rear fronting onto Mark Street Lane with segmental-headed first floor window openings, now blocked up.

Roof Artificial slate
RWG UPVC / Cast-iron
Walling Render
Windows Single-pane timber sash

Historical information

The numbering of commercial properties on Main Street, Portrush, appears to have changed three times during their existence. The footprint of The Trocadero emerged as no.98, then no. 31, and currently no. 43.

The Trocadero was once seen as a ’Monte Carlo style tearoom’, Art Nouveau in its detailing, and up until the early 1970s still retained some of its original fittings (Girvan). Its footprint emerged as a terrace-house, recorded on an isometric perspective by Dan Hanna, dated 1857 (PRONI D2977/36/6/13) of Portrush (described as ‘the Property of The Earl of Antrim Shewing the Building Lots to be Let and the Description of Buildings proposed to be Erected’). Between 1844 (PRONI D2977/36/6/10) and 1849 (PRONI D2977/36/6/12) it was marked as a building-plot 31ft. wide by 121ft. long, and leased from The Earl of Antrim by Allen Dunlop. A three-storey Georgian-style terrace-house was erected (PRONI D2977/36/6/13). Unlike the houses built at nos. 96 and 97, no. 98 had a front door-opening to the right of its façade (as it faced Main Street) with two rectangular lights to the left; three other lights on each of its first and second floors completed the symmetry of the front elevation. It had a gently pitched roof, a front garden (10ft. deep with a gate), and a rear yard/garden (PRONI D2977/36/6/13). There do not appear to have been any gables at that stage.

No. 98 Main Street functioned as the Osborne Hotel occupied by Mrs Jane Hurst (also of no. 97 [HB03/10/018C]) from, or before, 1889 with no marked increase in rateable value until 1920 when it escalated from £30 to £120 (PRONI VAL/12/B/4/22C). However, by 1925, no. 98 had become no. 31, occupied by Black and Sons (also occupying part of no. 97 [29b]), who now ran a restaurant on the premises with a rateable value of £86 which remained constant until 1938 (PRONI VAL/3C/1/30): this drop in rateable value may suggest a reduced commercial footprint on the site. In 1938 the numbering of the property changed again to no. 43, and the name ‘Trocadero Ltd.’ first appears in the rateable value records, associated with ‘Black & Son’ at the same address (PRONI VAL/3C/1/30). However, it was not until 1951 that “The Building and Northern Ireland Directory” (Vol. LXXI, p.1785) lists ‘The Trocadero Restaurant’ (Black & Sons Ltd.) as trading for the first time; its last listing was in 1966 (“The Building and Northern Ireland Directory” (Vol. LXXXVI, p.2144).

The Trocadero building is now part of the department store next door at no. 45—The White House (HB03/10/018A)—and partly used as a store-room and toy-department.

Primary Sources
Maps
PRONI D2977/36/6/10 map of Portrush 60ft to 1” (1844)
PRONI D2977/36/6/12 map of Portrush (1849)
PRONI D2977/36/6/13 Hanna, Dan, “Isometric Perspective of the Town of Portrush in the County of Antrim, Ireland, the Property of The Earl of Antrim Shewing the Building Lots to be Let and the Description of Buildings proposed to be Erected” (1857)

PRONI VAL/12/B/6/2E Electoral Division of Portrush Urban (1889-1895)
PRONI VAL/12/B/4/22A Ballymoney Union Portrush (Urban) ED, Co. Antrim
(1895-1906):
PRONI VAL/12/B/4/22B Electoral Division of Portrush Urban (1906-1913);
PRONI VAL/12/B/4/22C Electoral Division of Portrush Urban (1914-1925).
PRONI VAL/3C/1/30 Urban District of Portrush, Electoral Division (1936-1957).

Secondary Sources
Girvan, W. D. “Historic Buildings Considered to be of Outstanding Merit or Importance in North Antrim, including the towns of Portrush, Ballymoney, & Bushmills prepared March 1971-May1972” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1972

“The Building and Northern Ireland Directory”, Vol. LXXI, p.1785, & Vol. LXXXVI, p.2144

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
X. Local Interest
R. Age

Evaluation

Terraced two-bay three-storey rendered building, built c.1890 with projecting ground floor retail unit and entrance hall c.1910. Built as one of three similar buildings this example appears to have been completely remodelled in the early twentieth-century giving the building its current Art Nouveau appearance. Although interconnected with the adjoining department store, the building has retained much of its rich internal fittings and an impressive doorcase adding a further layer of interest to the terrace and the wider streetscape.