57 MAIN STREET

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two-and-a-half storey four-bay painted smooth-rendered former house. Rectangular plan-form with a shop front and former coach archway (now infilled) on ground floor level; Set within a terrace row along Main Street, Bushmills set back from adjacent No.55 Main Street (HB05/08/058). Built between 1835 and 1855 to designs by unknown architect. Located on the west side of Main Street on an internal corner site (NW) of Market Square in the village centre, with the River Bush to the west.

Walling is smooth-rendered painted finish; all windows to front are 1/1 timber sliding sashes on painted sills. Stone chimney stacks to both SE and NW sides of a natural slated pitched roof. Each chimney has four decorative octagonal shaped buff coloured clay pots; all set on a painted rendered plinth. Half-round cast-iron guttering discharges to a cast-iron circular downpipe (upper section of cast-iron downpipe missing).

Principal elevation faces North-east and is accessed directly off paved footpath on Market Square; ground floor contains a shop front to the right side having a single entrance doorway and two separate window bays each divided by five-sided stone engaged columns supporting a stone frieze and cornice above (commercial signage missing from frieze), doorway contains a panelled timber painted door with side lights and transom light over. To the left of the shop front is a former coach archway set within a slightly recessed rendered bay rising to first floor level. Ground floor level of coach archway contains a timber framed screen with a painted panelled timber door with integrated side lights and fanlight over. At first floor level there are three square headed window bays above shop front and a single bay over coach archway on first floor level, containing a single window opening with a shallow arched head. Wall-dormer window at attic level is aligned with central bay of first floor windows below.

South-east and North west side elevations are adjoined to neighbouring properties No. 61 & 53-55 Main Street [HB05/08/056 & 58].

South-west elevation to the rear - partially seen from rear of neighbouring property No 61 Main Street (HB05/08/056) - abutted by single storey return to left side with artificial slate roof and paired 1/1 modern timber sliding sash windows and back door on SE side. Single 1/1 timber sliding sash window to right of return (remainder of ground floor not seen), 3 single 1/1 timber sliding sash windows to first floor and large metal fire escape stair giving access to attic level flat, accessed via PVC door below wall head dormer. PVC rainwater goods ro rear.

Setting:
The terrace row is situated on the west side of Main Street directly overlooking Market Square. Located on the north side of Bushmills village centre.

Materials:
Roof: Natural Slate
RWGs: Cast-iron to front / PVC to rear
Walling: Painted Render
Windows: Timber sliding sash

Historical information

No. 57 Main Street, a two-and-a-half-storey mid-19th century building located on the west side of Main Street, Bushmills was constructed between 1835 and 1855 as part of the reconstruction of the village in the early-19th century. The Bushmills Conservation Area Guide records that Bushmills was a significant settlement before the end of the 18th century but from the 1820s the village was extensively rebuilt by the MacNaghten family of Bushmills House (who had acquired the estate in 1787). No. 57 Main Street was not depicted on either the Townland Valuation Town Plan (c. 1834) or the contemporary Townland Valuations (1835), however the structure was most likely erected in c. 1840 with the laying out of Market Square and the construction of the second bridge across the River Bush. No. 57 Main Street was first recorded with certainty on the second edition Ordnance Survey map (1855).

The contemporary Griffith’s Valuation (1859) set the total rateable value of No. 57 Main Street at £11 and noted that the building was initially leased by a Ms. Martha McElroy to Lyle Taggart, who operated a grocer’s shop from the premises. The Annual Revisions note that Taggart remained at the address until c. 1870 and that many other tenants subsequently occupied the building over the following decades. The 1911 Census records that No. 57 Main Street was inhabited by Annie Hunter who, along with her three children, were employed as local carters. The accompanying census building return described the building as a 2nd class dwelling that consisted of six inhabited rooms and possessed two stables, a piggery, a turf house and a shed amongst its outbuildings. The contemporary Ordnance Survey Town Plan (1902) depicted the property along its current layout and recorded a small outbuilding to rear. The Hunter family remained at the address until 1939 when No. 57 Main Street was purchased outright from the MacNaghten estate by a Ms. Margaret Kelly; the value of the building was raised to £12 and 10 shillings by the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57). Ownership of the house passed to a Mr. Albert Henderson in 1961 and by the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956-72) the total rateable value of No. 57 Main Street stood at £19.

In 1972 the UAHS Guide for North Antrim described the buildings along Main Street in Bushmills in the following general 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’ (UAHS Guide, p. 16). No. 57 Main Street was listed in 1980 and was subsequently included in the Bushmills Conservation Area. The conservation area was designated in 1992 in order to preserve the built heritage of the village which possesses the highest number of listed buildings in the North East of Northern Ireland. The NIEA HB Records note that the upper floors of Nos 57-61 Main Street were converted into a number of self-contained flats in c. 1994 whilst the ground floors of each building continued to be utilised as retail units (Bushmills Conservation Area Guide; NIEA HB Records).

References
Primary Sources
1. PRONI OS/6/1/3/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1832)
2. PRONI OS/6/1/3/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1855)
3. PRONI OS/6/1/3/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1904)
4. PRONI OS/6/1/3/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1921)
5. PRONI VAL/1D/1/7 – Townland Valuation Town Plan (c. 1834)
6. PRONI VAL/1/B/132 – Townland Valuations (1835)
7. PRONI VAL/2/B/1/25A – Griffith’s Valuation (1859)
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/30/8A-D – Annual Revisions (1859-94)
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/4/6A-C – Annual Revisions (1895-1929)
10. PRONI VAL/3/C/1/13 – First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57)
11. PRONI VAL/4/B/1/22 – Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956-72)
12. Ulster Town Directories (1861-1918)
13. Census of Ireland (1901; 1911)
14. First Survey Record – HB05/08/057
15. NIEA HB Record – HB05/08/057

Secondary Sources
1. ‘Bushmills Conservation Area Guide’ Belfast: Department of the Environment (N. I.), 1983 – including the Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1902.
2. Girvan, W. D., ‘Historic buildings, groups of buildings, areas of architectural importance in North Antrim’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1972.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

Two-and-a-half storey, smooth-rendered building with a shop front to right side and former coach archway on left (now infilled). Likely constructed c.1840 with the laying out of Market Square and the construction of the second bridge across the River Bush, as part of the reconstruction of the village in the early-19th century. Located on the west side of Main Street on an internal corner site (NW) of Market Square in the village centre, with the River Bush to the west. The building is set back from adjacent property to NW (55 Main Street HB05/08/058). While the front facade has been altered with the eaves being raised and the addition of a wall-head dormer as well as a third window opening being added between the original two openings at first floor level, the building retains an unusual shop front to the ground floor with five-sided engaged stone columns beneath a stone frieze and cornice, a feature not seen elsewhere in the village, and one which enhances the village centre setting.