39-41 Toberwine Street, Glenarm, Ballymena, Co Antrim, BT44 0AP

39–41 Toberwine Street is a substantial three-storey terraced shop and apartment building on the west side of Toberwine Street, just north of its junction with Castle Street, next to the former court house. The building is of possible pre-1832 construction, likely raised by a storey in around the 1840s, with a mid-19th century double-fronted timber shop front. It currently houses the village Post Office. Both its period character and historic fabric survive internally and externally to a degree that justifies its B1 listing.

The front (east) façade is asymmetrical. Much of the ground floor is occupied by a large timber shop front. At its centre is a panelled and glazed double door with a rectangular fanlight containing geometric tracery. To either side are large shop windows with large Georgian-style panes. The windows and door are all framed with timber pilaster jambs decorated with simple Greek Key patterns. The low stall risers beneath the windows are rendered. A metal post box (Elizabeth II cipher) is incorporated into the shop window to the right. To the right of the shop front is a timber-panelled door leading into the apartment, also framed with pilaster jambs — though here they are double thickness, as the door is recessed. This doorway similarly has a rectangular fanlight with tracery in a style matching the shop door. A painted timber signboard with a projecting cornice runs across the full width of both the shop front and the apartment door.

At first-floor level there are three evenly spaced sash windows with Georgian panes (six panes over six). A modern projecting PVC sign, possibly internally illuminated, is positioned between the second and third windows. At second-floor level there are three smaller sash windows with Georgian panes (six panes over three), set close to the eaves. The front façade is finished in painted roughcast with in-and-out quoins at first- and second-floor level. The roof is covered in natural slate with cast iron rainwater goods. To the north and south of the ridge are plain rendered chimneystacks.

To the rear, the main building is connected by a single-storey return to a full-width two-storey former outbuilding, together enclosing a very small yard that now appears to be largely roofed over. Because of this arrangement, very little of the rear façade of the main building is visible. What could be seen is the west face of the former outbuilding, which is roughcast rendered and has a window to the centre of each floor, with a door to the left at ground-floor level. The upper-floor window has Georgian panes but appears to be a fixed light; the ground-floor window has a modern frame. The door at ground-floor level is timber-sheeted. To the right at ground-floor level there extends a small single-storey gabled return, which has a large modern window and glazed door to its north face. The outbuilding has a slated gabled roof with a rendered chimneystack to the south gable. The main building has a slated gabled roof with two shared rendered chimneystacks and metal rainwater goods.

Toberwine Street — whose name translates as "Street of the Sweet Well" — is thought 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 believed to have stood at the south-west corner of the street, on the site now occupied by the former court house. That castle was deliberately destroyed by Sorley Boy MacDonnell in 1597 and apparently never repaired, his descendant Sir Randal McDonnell building 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 earliest known documentary reference to "Toberwine" appears in a lease of November 1672; the name "Toberwine Street" itself appears in a lease of August 1709. On John O'Hara's map of Glenarm of 1779 — the earliest surviving plan of the village — the street is shown fully developed on both sides, with the market and court house at the south-west end. While there is no verifiable trace of the old castle on that map, a remark in the 1835 Ordnance Survey Memoirs refers to "the foundations of a very extensive old castle which stood at the centre of the town until a few years ago," suggesting ruins of some kind survived into the early 19th century. Evidence from the 1833 valuation indicates that most of the buildings now visible on the west side of the street were present in some form by that date, and that many were probably 18th century in origin. The east side of the street saw considerably more development after 1833, with nos. 4–12 dating from around 1840 and nos. 20–34 and 62 from after around 1860, some of the latter replacing modest single-storey dwellings.

The site of nos. 39–41 is shown as occupied on O'Hara's 1779 map and on all subsequent maps. The 1833 valuation records that the building then on site — occupied by one John Park — was a relatively old two-storey property measuring approximately 23½ feet by 24½ feet by 16 feet, with a two-storey outbuilding to the rear. By 1859, the height of the main building is recorded as 20 feet, implying it had either been rebuilt in the intervening years or, more probably, that the eaves level was simply raised by 4 feet to create an additional storey. Since the 1859 valuers still regarded the building as relatively old, and given the proximity of the second-floor windows to the eaves, it is considered more likely that the walls were raised rather than the whole structure rebuilt. It is probable that the shop front was added at the same time. The leaseholder recorded in 1859 was James Hannah, Lord Antrim's agent. The property has served as the village post office since the mid-20th century, having previously been located on the opposite side of Toberwine Street at what is now no. 24.