Bush House, Bushmills

A three-room, rendered terraced pub where most of the interior work probably dates back to just prior to the Second World War (or shortly afterwards). Front right-hand door leads into a porch with yellow and red diamond quarry-tiled floor. The excellent small public bar has a terrazzo floor, a panelled bar counter that could date from the 1930s with a terrazzo trough along the base of it. The bar back consists of four advertising mirrors with optics attached to timber partially covering some mirrors. The mirrors advertise 'Brown Corbet & Co's Old Irish Whisky Belfast'; 'Dunville's Whisky'; 'Greer's OVH Old Vatted Highland Whiskey 10 Years Old'; and 'Dunville's Whisky'. The room has inter-war fielded panelled walls and a bell box is situated high up near the door.

A door with ‘Lounge’ painted on a 1930s ribbed glass panel leads to the small smoke room with more fielded panelling to two-thirds height and a terrazzo floor. The elegant fiddle back mahogany fire-surround is said to have been brought in from the former Arcadia ballroom in Portrush but it has recently lost it tiled interior. The bell-push here was still in use until 2005 and there are remains of the cantilever fitting above the door which rang a bell when the door was opened; the fixed seating is modern.

On the rear left the old kitchen, complete with white glazed brick, a still working 'Fairy Esse' cooker and black and red quarry tiled floor, was pressed into public use as the bell-pushes indicate. In recent years the wall that separated the former kitchen from the small front room, with its wooden floor and tiled fireplace, was removed. In the corridor that runs from the front left door, which has a diamond quarry tiled floor and inter-war fielded panelling, you will notice the door to the ladies’ toilet retains its penny-in-the-slot-device, which was still in use until the late 1990s! The outbuildings still retain some of the equipment for bottling Guinness but the rare traditional game of horseshoes, in which the aim is to land them on a pin, is no longer played in the yard at the insistence of the local Health & Safety Officer!