Town Lodge, 38 Altmore Street, Glenarm, County Antrim, BT44 0AR

Town Lodge, 38 Altmore Street, Glenarm

A two-storey stone-built gate lodge of circa 1840–45, standing at the Town (south-east) gate to the Glenarm Castle demesne. The building displays simple Tudoresque overtones and has been substantially extended with a large full-height rear return dating to around 1900. The stone façade has been painted in relatively recent years, though the lodge remains a good example of its type and retains its original setting.

The front (west) elevation is symmetrical. At the centre of the ground floor stands a small gabled porch with overhanging verge. The porch front gable contains a pointed arch doorway (vaguely Tudor in character), recessed within which is a panelled and glazed door with triangular fanlight. To the north and south faces of the porch are very narrow two-pane windows with semicircular arch heads, in-and-out dressings, and two-pane timber frames. Either side of the porch are windows with double sash frames (each 2/2 with horizontal glazing bars), in-and-out dressings, square drip moulding and label stops. The first floor has three evenly spaced windows similar to those below but with plain double sash frames and no drip moulding; the openings are quite close to the eaves.

The north gable displays a very narrow semicircular arch-headed window at the centre of the first floor, with dressings as before and plain sash frame. The south gable features a small, relatively recent two-sided oriel window serving both ground and first floors, with top-hung frames. The rear elevation is dominated by the large two-storey gabled return positioned left of centre. The exposed rear façade of the original main section, flanking the return on either side, is blank. The east (gabled) face of the return is blank. The south face has a sheeted door with plain fanlight to the left of the ground floor and a 4/4 sash window to the right (with horizontal and vertical glazing bars). The first floor has two similar but smaller sash windows. The north face of the return has two 4/4 sash windows at each storey.

The original section is built in squared stone with in-and-out quoins and dressings, now painted. The return is finished in painted lined render with chamfered in-and-out moulded quoins. The gabled roof has an overhang with plain barges and is covered in natural slate. Two chimneystacks sit at the centre of the ridge of the original section, both recently rebuilt in concrete brick. A rendered chimneystack rises from the gable of the return. Cast iron rainwater goods are present throughout.

The building was constructed between 1836 and 1857, appearing on the Ordnance Survey map of 1857 but not on an estate map drawn up in 1836 or slightly later. J.A.K. Dean, in his work on Ulster gate lodges, dates the building to circa 1845 and suggests it may have been designed by William Vitruvius Morrison, who remodelled Glenarm Castle and built the Barbican lodge in the mid-1820s. While the date may be accurate and the Tudoresque character recalls Morrison's other work, no documentary evidence currently confirms this attribution; moreover, Morrison died in 1838. The building originally comprised the front portion only. The return appears on the 1903 Ordnance Survey map and, judging from internal detailing, was likely added not long before that date, probably around 1900. The façade was first painted sometime before 1970.