24 The Vennel, Glenarm, Ballymena, Co Antrim, BT44 0AN

24 The Vennel is a two-storey, double-fronted stuccoed terrace house dating from perhaps the 1870s. It sits on the north side of The Vennel, with its front elevation facing roughly south.

The front elevation is symmetrical and relatively plain. At the centre of the ground floor is a panelled timber door with a rectangular fanlight divided into margin and centre panes. The door surround consists of relatively plain pilasters surmounted by decorative brackets supporting a shallow cornice hood. To either side of the doorway is a sash window with Georgian glazing bars in a six-over-six arrangement. The first floor has three similar but shorter sash windows, glazed six-over-three. The front façade is finished in painted lined render with in-and-out quoins. The upper portion of the west gable is exposed and rendered, without any openings.

To the rear, to the left (east) of the rear elevation, is a single-storey return with a mono-pitched roof. On the west face of this return there is a timber sheeted door with a small Georgian-paned window to its right. To the centre of the rear elevation, to the right of the return, is a small single-storey lean-to. On the north face of the lean-to there is a small window with a modern frame. Between the return and the lean-to, the rear wall of the main house has a sash window matching those on the ground floor front, and to the right of the lean-to there is a further similar window. At first-floor level there are three windows matching the first-floor front elevation, with the central window set at a slightly lower half-landing level. All of the rear elevation, except the lean-to, is finished in salt-and-pepper dash render with smooth cement render bands, quoins, and smooth cement render surrounds to the openings. The lean-to is finished in recent-looking unpainted lined render.

The main roof is gabled and slated, as is the return roof. The lean-to roof may also be slated, though this could not be confirmed clearly. There are two rendered chimneystacks to the main roof. Rainwater goods are a mixture of cast iron and PVC. To the front of the property there is a small garden enclosed by a low rendered wall.

The Vennel itself has a notable history. Before the Coast Road was built in the 1830s, it was the principal route into Glenarm from Larne and the south. Its name derives from an archaic Scots word meaning a narrow winding lane, and its sloping topography made it the least appealing of the village's four main streets. Early leases dating from 1743 onwards — held in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland among the Antrim Papers — refer to it as the Stinking Vennel or Stinking Vennel Street, and repeatedly mention waste tenements in the area. John O'Hara's 1779 map of Glenarm shows many small, densely packed dwellings along much of both sides of the street. Over 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 records indicate considerable rebuilding on the north side after 1859; and Ordnance Survey plans from the early 1900s, together with photographic evidence, show that most of the present south side appears to be of early 20th-century date.

The valuation notebook of 1859 records that the site of No. 24 was at that point occupied by smaller two-storey dwellings, which the accompanying valuation map shows were subsequently demolished and replaced with the present house at some point in the later 19th century. Based on the style of the building, this is thought to have occurred around the 1870s, and it is possible the work may have involved raising the roof of an earlier structure rather than a complete rebuild.

The building retains sufficient period character to merit listing. It is a private residence within a conservation area and is considered to have group value with neighbouring buildings.