Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB06/02/058

Address :
36-38 Toberwine Street Glenarm Ballymena Co Antrim BT44 0AP

Townland:
Glenarm Town Parks

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Survey 2:
Record Only

Date of Listing:

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Shop

Former Use
Shop

Conservation Area:
Yes

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
45/12

IG Ref:
D3113 1518

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Owner Category

Private

Exterior Description And Setting

Substantial three storey terrace house with shop, possibly dating from c.1835-40, with the house section now divided into flats and large recent extensions added to the rear. The building is located in the centre of the terrace to the E side of Toberwine Street. The front elevation faces roughly W and is asymmetrical. To the centre right on the ground floor there is a deeply recessed panelled and glazed door (leading to the shop). To the left of this is a relatively large shop window with recent multi-pane frame. Painted signboard over window. To the right of the shop door there is a panelled door, leading to the ground floor flat etc. To the first floor there are three evenly spaced sash windows with Georgian panes (6/6). To the second floor there are a three similar but shorter windows (also 6/6). The front façade is finished in recent looking lined render with in-out quoins. The N and S gables rise above their neighbours and are blank. To the S side of the Rear E elevation is a recent looking three storey gabled return. To the E side of this is a recent steel fire escape stair. A half-glazed door to the first and second floors opens on to a landing. To the right side of the ground floor there is another door with a modern window to the left. To the N the three storey return is abutted by a single storey return; the N and E faces are blank while there are two modern windows and a partly glazed door to the S face. To the right (N) of the three storey return the first and second floors of the rear façade of the main section of the building appear to be exposed, but these floors were largely obscured from view. The rear elevation is finished in a mixture of recent looking lined and plain render and is unpainted. The main gabled roof and the roof of the return are slated. Rendered chimneystack to N, recent brick stack to S. The rw goods appear to be mainly cast iron.

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

TOBERWINE STREET Toberwine Street (‘Street of the ‘sweet well’) may represent the original area of settlement within the village of Glenarm, its narrowness betraying something of its antiquity. The original 13th century castle of Glenarm, around which the village developed, is believed to have stood at the south west corner of the street, on the site now occupied by the former court house. The castle itself was deliberately ‘broken’ by Sorley Boy MacDonnell in 1597 and, seemingly, not repaired- Sorley’s descendant, Sir Randal McDonnell, building a new residence on the other side of the river. Some historians state that the old castle was occupied by tenants (and therefore presumably repaired in some fashion), in the later 17th century, but Richard Dobbs makes no reference to it in his 1683 description of the village. The first mention of ‘Toberwine’ within the Antrim Papers appears to be in a lease of November 1672, which refers to a house within the area, with ‘Toberwine Street’ mentioned in a lease of August 1709. On John O’Hara’s 1779 map of Glenarm (the earliest extant plan of the village) the street is shown fully developed on both sides, with the market / court house to the south west end. There is no verifiable indication of any remains of the old castle shown on the map, but the remark made in the 1835 OS Memoirs concerning ‘the foundations of a very extensive old castle which stood at the centre of the town until a few years ago’ indicates that ruins of some kind may have lingered into the early 19th century. Evidence provided by the valuation of 1833 suggests that most of the buildings we now see on the west side of the street were present (in some form) at that date and that many were probably 18th century. The east side of the street witnessed a much greater degree of development after 1833 however, with nos.4-12 all c.1840, and nos.14, 20-34, 40-42 and 62 post c.1860- some of the latter replacing modest single storey dwellings. There is evidence to suggest that large three storey former Antrim Arms Hotel (and possibly its neighbour no.56) may have been standing in the early 1830s, but this is not certain. No.36-38 A building of the same dimensions as present (excluding the present return etc.) is recorded in the 1859 valuation notebook. The valuers tell us that at this point the property contained a shop and a house and was ‘not new’- probably dating from c.1835-40; the owner is listed a James Kelly, the occupant as one Bryan Dunne, with the building containing a ‘shop- 4 [rooms] below and 4 over and 4 at top, rear kitchen and room over’. The rear rooms were contained within a two level (11ft high) return, which, on the accompanying valuation plan appears to have been sited further to north than the present one. In recent times the upper floor apartment has been split into three flats with the return to the rear rebuilt on a much taller scale and a single storey rear return added in the process. References- Primary sources 1 PRONI D.2977/3A/4/65/2, 30, 34A, 36, 37A-B, 43-45, 70A-B etc. Antrim Papers Leases relating to property in ‘Toberwine’ / Toberwine Street, 1672, 1709, 1736/7, 1753 etc. 2 PRONI D.2977/36/3/1A Antrim Papers Map, showing the Town of Glenarm, plus Glenarm Castle and demesne, by John O'Hara, 1779. [Includes a list of the tenants in Glenarm town.] 3 Ulster Museum A view of Glenarm Castle (painting dating from some time between 1768 and 1812) [This painting also shows the town itself.] 4 View of Glenarm c.1769-c.1812 (painting in possession of Lord Dunluce) 5 “The town and castle of Glenarm, Co. Antrim” [1830] by T.M. Baynes in ‘Ireland illustrated’ (London 1831) 6 ‘Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland…’ vol.13 [c.1830-35] ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1992), p.127 7 PRONI OS/6/1/29/1 OS map, Co Antrim sh 29, 1832-33 8 PRONI VAL/1B/149 First valuation, Tickmacrevan parish, 1833 [The map to accompany this valuation is now lost making it extremely difficult, (and in most cases impossible), to tell which properties the valuation book is actually referring to. In some cases (most notably the west side of Toberwine Street) the writer has been able to successfully correlate the information contained within the second valuation notebook for 1859 with that of the first valuation, in order to decipher some of the details contained within the latter, but for most properties within Glenarm this has not been possible.] 9 Samuel Lewis, ‘A topographical dictionary of Ireland’ vol.1 (London 1837), p.658 10 William Makepeace Thackery, ‘Irish sketchbook’ (1843), p.238 11 Mrs and Mrs S.C. Hall, ‘Ireland: Its scenery, character etc., vol.III (London 1843), p.130 12 PRONI VAL/2D/1/11 Valuation town plan of Glenarm, 1859 [with later annotations- ?c.1900] 13 PRONI VAL/2B/1/41B Second valuation [notebook], village of Glenarm, 1859 [In the light of the problems concerning the first valuation this notebook and its accompanying map are both invaluable. For many areas the details of the second valuation only survive in the final printed form, with the names of householders and leaseholders and the rateable value for each property supplied only. For some areas, Glenarm among them, the working notebooks compiled by the valuers have survived, providing information such as dimensions of buildings, their use, the number of rooms they contain, notes on age and condition, and, (occasionally), comments regarding the overall appearance of properties. In many respect these notebooks closely resemble those of the first valuation, but frequently contain more detail.] 14 PRONI OS/8/103/1 OS town plan of Glenarm, 1903 15 PRONI VAL/12E/31/1 Valuation town plan of Glenarm, 1907-[1935] 16 PRONI VAL/3G/20/1 Valuation town plan of Glenarm. 1936-57 Secondary sources 1 C.E.B. Brett, ‘Historic buildings…Glens of Antrim’ (Belfast 1971), p.16 2 Eileen Black, “A view of Glenarm Castle” in ‘The Glynns- Journal of The Glens of Antrim Historical Society’ vol.7 (1979), pp.29-30 3 Jimmie Irvine, “A map of Glenarm- 1779” in ‘The Glynns- Journal of The Glens of Antrim Historical Society’ vol.9 (1981), pp.52-61 4 Hon. Hector McDonnell, “The building of the parish church at Glenarm” in ‘The Glynns- Journal of The Glens of Antrim Historical Society’ vol.10 (1982), pp.31-36 5 Felix McKillop, ‘Glenarm- A local history’ (Glenarm 1987

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

Not listed

Historic Interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Substantial three storey terrace house with shop, possibly dating from c.1835-40, with the house section now divided into flats and large recent extensions added to the rear. Not of architectural interest.

General Comments

Date of Survey

08 May 2001