15 Vennel Street (The Vennel), Glenarm, Ballymena, Co Antrim, BT44 0AS

15 Vennel Street is a relatively small, plain two-storey rendered terrace house. Despite its slightly Georgian appearance to the front elevation, it probably dates from around 1930. The property is of considerable townscape importance and forms part of a stepped terrace on the south side of Vennel Street.

The front elevation faces roughly north and is asymmetrical in composition. On the ground floor to the left is a 1930s-style panelled and glazed door. To the right is a plain tripartite sash window, with two further sash windows to the first floor. The front eaves are hidden behind a plain parapet with coping. A cast iron rainwater head and rainwater pipe are positioned to the left side of the elevation.

The rear elevation to the south contains a modern door to the right and a large window with modern frame to the left. The first floor has two modern four-pane windows. The front (north) elevation is finished with painted render, while the rear (south) elevation is finished in dry dash. The gabled roof is slated, and the rainwater goods are in cast iron.

Vennel Street was the main road to Glenarm from Larne and the south before the Coast Road was built in the 1830s. The name 'Vennel', an archaic Scots term for a narrow winding lane, and the street's sloping topography suggest it was the least attractive of the village's four main streets. Early leases from 1743 onwards refer to it as the 'Stinking Vennel' or 'Stinking Vennel Street' and mention 'waste tenements'. John O'Hara's map of 1779 shows many small densely packed dwellings along both sides of much of its length.

During the following century and a half, most of this housing was replaced. The 1832 Ordnance Survey map shows a very large gap on the south side, annotations to the second valuation map of 1859 show much post-1859 rebuilding on the north side, and discrepancies between the 1903 Ordnance Survey map and later editions and photographic evidence indicate that most of the present south side appears to be early twentieth century. On the 1859 valuation map, a group of eight small dwellings is shown on the site of the present terrace of five houses (numbers 11 to 19). The 1903 Ordnance Survey plan marks six properties, and photographs from around 1910 show the eastern portion of the terrace consisted of dilapidated single-storey dwellings with two-storey ones to the west which look markedly different from those today. This suggests the house and its terrace were all built after this date.

The west end of the terrace (numbers 11 to 15), to which number 15 belongs, appears slightly later than the east end and may date as late as 1930. The Antrim Papers at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland contain plans of three proposed 'kitchen houses' in Vennel Street dating from around this year, apparently relating to this grouping. The owner of number 13 has stated a belief that the group was built through the efforts of 'Lady Antrim', apparently meaning Angela, the mother of the present Earl, which would be consistent with a date of around 1930.