27 Toberwine Street, Glenarm, Ballymena, Co Antrim, BT44 0AP

27 Toberwine Street, Glenarm

This is a substantial two-storey terraced house of probable pre-1832 construction, set on the west side of Toberwine Street in the village of Glenarm, County Antrim. The simple decorative stucco work applied to the front façade dates from around 1925. To the rear there is a two-storey return and a more recent-looking single-storey lean-to extension. To the north side of the main house is a slightly lower two-storey portion, which may originally have been a separate dwelling, containing a large vehicle entrance. The property served as a hotel — the Seaview Hotel — in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and subsequently as a public house in the mid-20th century, before reverting to use as a private dwelling house by 1970.

Front Façade

The front, east-facing façade of the main house is symmetrical. At ground floor centre is a panelled door with a plain rectangular fanlight, framed by fluted pilasters with decorative leaf capitals, a plain frieze, and a projecting moulded cornice. To either side of the doorway is a single sash window with horizontal glazing bars in a 2-over-2 arrangement, each with simple decorative moulded surrounds. At first floor level there are three similarly spaced windows with matching moulded surrounds, resting on a projecting sill course. The ground floor is finished in a channelled render resembling rustication, with dry dash to the upper floor. There is a chamfered plinth at the base. All of the present finish to the front façade, including the mouldings, was applied at around 1925.

To the right (north) of the main house façade is the front of the lower section. At ground floor level this has a large flat-arched vehicle entrance with large timber-sheeted double doors. At first floor level are two window openings without frames. Between the ground and first floor levels are five small rectangular holes. This section is finished in painted lined render.

Rear Elevation

To the right (south) side of the rear elevation is the flat-roofed two-storey return. The west face of this at ground floor level has a window with a modern frame; the north face at upper floor level has a double sash window. To the left (north) of the rear elevation is the single-storey lean-to extension, which merges with the two-storey return and extends across the rear of the lower vehicle-entrance section. At the far left of the lean-to is a semicircular-headed door opening leading into the vehicle entrance area. To its right is a modern glazed door with a large modern window immediately to its right, then a window with a modern frame, then a doorway with a modern door, then another window with a modern frame. On the small exposed section of the main house rear façade at first floor level, immediately to the left of the two-storey return, there is a plain sash window. At first floor level on the rear façade of the lower northern section there are two window openings with single-light frames but no glazing. The rear elevation, including the return and lean-to, is finished in roughcast.

Outbuilding Return

Extending from the south side of the rear elevation is a long outbuilding return that is partly two-storey and partly single-storey, with a slated gabled roof. The eastern, single-storey section appears to contain utility rooms and has two plain sash windows to the left on its north face, followed by a French window, and then another sash window to the right. This section is finished in roughcast. The western two-storey section is constructed in limestone rubble and has at least three window openings to the first floor of its west face, with a doorway at the far left of the ground floor, set within a small lean-to projection. The remainder of this face was obscured by vegetation at the time of inspection.

Roof

The main gabled roof is slated, as are the roof of the lean-to and the gabled roof of the outbuilding return. The main roof carries two brick chimneystacks.

Historical and Street Context

Toberwine Street — whose name translates as the Street of the Sweet Well — is believed to represent the original area of settlement within the village of Glenarm, its narrowness reflecting 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 was deliberately slighted by Sorley Boy MacDonnell in 1597 and was apparently not repaired thereafter, his descendant Sir Randal McDonnell having built a new residence on the opposite side of the river. Some historians record that the old castle was occupied by tenants in the later 17th century, implying some degree of repair, but Richard Dobbs makes no mention of it in his 1683 description of the village. The name Toberwine first appears in the Antrim Papers in a lease of November 1672, referring to a house within the area, with Toberwine Street itself named in a lease of August 1709. By John O'Hara's map of 1779 — the earliest surviving plan of Glenarm — the street is shown fully developed on both sides, with the market and court house at the south-west end. Although no verifiable remains of the old castle are shown on that map, the 1835 Ordnance Survey Memoirs record "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 now visible on the west side of the street were present in some form at that date, and that many were probably 18th-century in origin.

This particular site is shown as occupied on O'Hara's 1779 map and on all subsequent maps. The present house is probably the two-storey dwelling recorded in the first valuation as belonging to George Halloran — noted in the Antrim Papers as a revenue officer of Glenarm in 1822 and later described in Slater's Directory of 1846 as a lime merchant exporting local limestone to England and western Scotland — and subsequently, in 1859, to Jane McNeill. The valuation records suggest the lower northern portion was a separate dwelling in 1832, though under the same ownership as the larger house, but that it contained a gateway by 1859, indicating it may have been rebuilt or significantly altered in the intervening period.

Hotel Plans

Plans of the Seaview Hotel dating from approximately 1895, held in the Antrim Papers at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (reference D.2977/37/3/2/5), show that at that stage the large living room to the north contained a bar to the front and a kitchen to the rear; the present sitting room served as a dining room with a small kitchen behind it. The lower northern section had a narrower vehicle entrance at that time, with two rooms to the south of the entrance — a kitchen and a smaller room integrated with the bar — and a staircase between them. Immediately to the south of the vehicle entrance was a pedestrian door. The return to the south, now apparently used as a utility room, contained a large dining hall. A further return to the north, to the rear of the lower section and now removed, contained another large dining room at first floor level.