Gate at town lodge, Altmore Street, Glenarm, Ballymena, Co Antrim

Gate at town lodge, Altmore Street, Glenarm

This castellated gate screen and walling dates from around 1840 and fronts the 'town' entrance to the Glenarm Castle estate, forming the ceremonial connection between the estate and the associated settlement. It is constructed in squared snecked basalt with red sandstone dressings and raised pointing.

The gate screen is located at the south end of Altmore Street on a slight slope, adjacent to the intersection with The Town Brae Road. The central portion is relatively tall and features a Tudor arched carriage entrance with a moulded sandstone dressed archivolt and decorative but relatively simple iron gates. Each half of the gate displays a small central roundel plaque with elements of the Antrim coat of arms. To either side of the entrance on the north-facing front are sandstone dressed cross 'arrow loop' recesses. This central section is topped with a stepped parapet in Irish castellation fashion, with a small sandstone shield panel. The parapet oversails slightly to the north east and west, supported on a dentil-like course of sandstone brackets, and features sandstone coping. The central portion has in-and-out sandstone quoins.

The walling to the immediate east and west of the central portion descends in stepped fashion to each side, culminating in a square pier. Each pier has a pointed arch recess in sandstone on its face and an oversailing square cap with bracketed course and coping matching the main parapet. Beyond the eastern pier, the wall is constructed in cruder fashion using random basalt rubble with rough coping. To the immediate west of the western pier, the walling abuts an outbuilding belonging to number 29 Altmore Street, which matches the gate screen in materials and features a Tudor arch.

The gate screen's construction was part of the estate's evolution as a country house entrance. Following the construction of Glenarm Bridge in 1823, which finally allowed traffic to bypass the castle grounds, the Countess of Antrim and her second husband Edmund McDonnell were able to establish new entrances to the estate. The Barbican lodge was commissioned in 1825 from architects Richard and William (Vitruvius) Morrison, but this could not serve as a grand main entrance as it brought visitors within yards of the castle's service wing. The new entrance at the south end of Altmore Street was therefore created, with the street widened and this Tudoresque gate screen erected. This entrance led visitors along a tree-lined drive southwards, then west over the river via a rustic bridge before heading northwards, with the castle set picturesquely in the distance. By 1903, the OS map shows a footbridge had replaced the rustic bridge, indicating the drive was no longer in use for vehicles. Following the repositioning of the footbridge approximately a mile and a half to the south around 1991, the entrance ceased to function as a drive to the castle, though it has remained in use for accessing the forested portions of the estate to the east of the river.