On our second day in Bushmills we had a distillery visit booked in the afternoon. In the morning, we visited the tourist office to pick up a copy of the local heritage trail so that we could explore more of the village. The settlement has a long history, perhaps as far back as the 12th century, and these days is a Conservation Village and the “Gateway to the Causeway Coast”. It is also very loyalist as you can possibly tell from my header image – I’ll come back to that later.

In the centre of the village is the War Memorial, Clock Tower, and Market Square. The old Court House (1834) is currently undergoing renovation; the old school building (1842), subsequently used as a hall by the Royal British Legion, seems to be going to seed despite efforts by the Bushmills Trust.

Village Centre

War Memorial

Clock Tower

Old courthouse

Former school and Legion Hall

Walking down Main Street we passed two attractive pubs. Had we not been so well fed at the Bushmills Inn, we might have tried these!

Distillers Arms

Finn MacCool’s

Crossing the river on Bridge Street we could see old mill buildings, now private homes. At one time Bushmills had seven working mills.

Old mill buildings

Old mill buildings

The Old Grammar School was commissioned in 1927 by the Macnaghten family, who built much of present day Bushmills, and was designed by Clough Williams-Ellis of Portmeirion fame. It has a distinctive bell tower common, according to the trail leaflet, in Cornish and American schoolhouses.

Old Grammar School

Old Grammar School

Walking alongside the river we came to the Smiling Cow, a collaborative idea from young people in Bushmills and Catalonia. It was sculpted by Metal Imagineers in 2013.

Smiling Cow

Smiling Cow

Crossing back over the river on a different bridge, we admired the housing on both sides. A nice place to stay.

Riverside housing

Riverside housing

Near our hotel were two statues / sculptures: one a memorial to Robert Quigg (1885-1955) who was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery at the Somme, the other, Alphabet Angel, a 2004 sculpture by Ross Wilson representing the local tongue of Ulster-Scots.

Sergeant Robert Quigg VC

Alphabet Angel

Opposite our hotel was the Dundarave Estate (home to the Alphabet Angel) where there were various artworks referring to Octavia Hill (1838-1912) who, amongst other achievements, was a co-founder of the National Trust. I was puzzled as to what her connection to Bushmills could be, but a quick Google told me that there was none. It seems that she was chosen for this community project for her role in pioneering the development and management of social housing. The gable end does seem to be in need of a little touching up!

Octavia Hill artwork

Octavia Hill – quote by John Bird

Octavia Hill benches

The estate itself is clearly a strong Loyalist and Unionist area with red, white and blue kerbstones and paramilitary wall art on some of the houses.

Red, white and blue kerbstones

War memorial mural

5th Battalion UDA

Ulster Young Militants

As I said at the beginning, the village as a whole seems very loyalist as further evidenced by posters on lampposts. I offer these without comment, except to say that I am quite sceptical about the idea that the police are in the pocket of Sinn Fein.

Stand firm

PSNI (Police Service Northern Ireland)

On a lighter note, to end with I’ll take you back to the Bushmills Inn and a couple of quirky things that didn’t make it into my original post about it. All the rooms were named after whiskies – I can’t remember what ours was, but I wished it had been this one, Mitchell being my family name. And I did love the retired racehorse in one of the lounges.

Retired racehorse

Retired racehorse

Romm 209 Mitchell’s

After Bushmills, we set off for Derry. More about that next time.