Former Antrim Arms Hotel, 54 Toberwine Street, Glenarm, Ballymena, Co Antrim, BT44 0AP

Former Antrim Arms Hotel, 54 Toberwine Street, Glenarm

This is a large, relatively plain, three-storey terraced former hotel dating from around 1830 to 1840, now divided into five apartments. It stands on the east side of Toberwine Street, with its front façade facing west.

The front elevation is asymmetrical. Slightly left of centre is the original main entrance: a four-panel timber door with a plain rectangular fanlight, framed by panelled pilasters with large console brackets supporting a cornice hood. This doorway now gives access to no. 54a. To the left of this entrance are two windows with sash frames (2/2 with horizontal glazing bars — all front windows are of this type). To the right of the doorway are two further windows. At the far right is a large flat-arch carriage entrance fitted with double timber-sheeted doors and a wicket gate, which appears to be largely left open. At first-floor level there are six evenly spaced windows (the first five from the left). At second-floor level there are six similar but smaller windows (2/1), aligned with those below. The ground floor is finished in painted rusticated render with simulated quoins to the arch. The remainder of the front façade is in painted lined render with in-and-out quoins.

Within the carriage archway, in the north wall, are two timber-sheeted doors: the left-hand one leads to no. 54b, and the right-hand one leads into a stairwell serving nos. 54c and 54e.

The rear elevation features a relatively large three-storey gabled return positioned right of centre. On the ground floor, to the left of this return, are two sash windows (Georgian-pane 6/6 glazing — all rear windows are of this type), with the rear of the carriage arch to the far left. To the ground floor right of this section are two further windows. Within the ground floor of the return itself is an open archway leading to a timber-sheeted door with a plain rectangular fanlight, which gives access to no. 54d. At first-floor level, to the left of the return there are three windows (the far-left one slightly narrower than the rest); to the right of the return there are two similar windows. At second-floor level, to the left of the return there are three windows corresponding to those on the first floor; to the right of the return is a single window, much as at first-floor level. On both the north and south faces of the return there is a single window on each side at first- and second-floor levels, all matching the windows described above. At ground-floor level the east face of the return abuts the west end of a long single-storey row containing five small dwellings (see below). The north gable is only exposed at second-floor level, where there is a window to the left and a projecting chimney breast at the centre. The gable and rear elevation are finished in painted lined render. The gabled roof is slated and has three unevenly spaced rendered chimney stacks to the ridge. Cast-iron rainwater goods are fitted throughout.

To the rear, a long row contains five small gabled dwellings of simple appearance, with timber-sheeted doors, plain sash windows to the front, slated roofs, and rendered chimneys. This row appears formerly to have contained a long stable building, and the present dwellings may retain some of the original fabric.

The exterior, front and rear, has been conserved, and it is on this basis that the building meets the criteria for retention on the statutory list at Grade B2.

Historical background

Toberwine Street — whose name translates as "Street of the Sweet Well" — is believed to represent the original area of settlement within the village of Glenarm, its narrowness suggesting considerable antiquity. The original 13th-century castle of Glenarm, around which the village grew, is thought to have stood at the south-west corner of the street on the site now occupied by the former courthouse. The castle was deliberately demolished by Sorley Boy MacDonnell in 1597 and apparently not repaired thereafter; his descendant Sir Randal McDonnell subsequently built a new residence on the other side of the river. Some historians suggest the old castle was occupied by tenants in the later 17th century, though Richard Dobbs makes no mention of it in his 1683 description of the village. The first reference to "Toberwine" in the Antrim Papers appears in a lease of November 1672; "Toberwine Street" is mentioned by name in a lease of August 1709. On John O'Hara's map of Glenarm dated 1779 — the earliest surviving plan of the village — the street is shown fully built up on both sides, with the market and courthouse at the south-west end. While no verifiable trace of the old castle appears on that map, the 1835 Ordnance Survey Memoirs refer to "the foundations of a very extensive old castle which stood at the centre of the town until a few years ago," suggesting that some ruins survived into the early 19th century.

Evidence from the 1833 valuation indicates that most buildings on the west side of the street were present in some form by that date and were probably of 18th-century origin. The east side saw considerably more development after 1833: nos. 4–12 are all around 1840, and nos. 20–34 and 62 post-date around 1860, some replacing modest single-storey dwellings. There is evidence to suggest that the large three-storey former Antrim Arms Hotel — and possibly its neighbour no. 56 — may have been standing in the early 1830s, though this is not certain.

The site itself is shown as occupied on O'Hara's 1779 map and on all subsequent maps. The present building is almost certainly that of the same dimensions recorded in the valuation notebook and map of 1859, when it was in the hands of a Charles McCay, who leased it from a John Dunne. The 1859 notebook grades the property as "A," meaning a building either newly constructed within the previous twenty years or so thoroughly renovated within that period as to be effectively new. Given its overall character — with its console-bracketed doorcase, regular façade, and large carriage arch — a date of around 1840 seems probable; however, the long rear outbuilding is shown in exactly the same form on both the 1859 valuation map and the 1832 Ordnance Survey map, pointing to an earlier origin. This earlier date is further suggested by a phrase in an 1888 advertisement in Bassett's Directory describing the hotel as "established over half a century," making a date of around 1830 possible.

By the 1950s the hotel had been extended to incorporate the property immediately to the south (no. 56, formerly the local police station). It continued in business until 1973, when a combination of declining visitor numbers and the detonation of a terrorist bomb at the rear of the building led the owners to close it permanently. The building remained largely vacant until 1984, when it was acquired by Hearth, restored, and converted to flats. The original rear outbuildings were demolished at that time and replaced by the present row of small single-storey dwellings.