11 Vennel Street (The Vennel), Glenarm, Ballymena, County Antrim, BT44 0AS

A relatively small, plain, two-storey rendered end-of-terrace house, likely dating from around 1930 despite its slightly Georgian appearance. The property sits at the western end of a stepped terrace on the south side of Vennel Street and is of townscape importance.

The front (roughly north-facing) elevation is asymmetrical. On the ground floor to the left is a panelled and glazed door in a 1920s to 1930s style. To the right is a tripartite sash window with Georgian panes arranged 2/2, 6/6, 2/2. Directly above this is a matching window of the same pattern. The left side of the first floor is blank. The front eaves are concealed behind a plain parapet with coping.

The west elevation is gabled and entirely blank. At its apex is a plain rendered chimney stack with a single small pot. Each verge has a low stone copestone.

To the rear (south) elevation, on the left side, is a single-storey flat-roofed extension with a deep painted timber fascia. At the centre of the south face is a late Edwardian-style mullioned and transomed window with multi-pane upper lights. The east face of the rear return is blank; the west face has a partly glazed door. To the left of the extension, on the rear façade of the main house, is a narrow window similar in style to the mullioned and transomed example, with another similar window to the right of the extension. At first-floor level on the rear elevation are two further windows of the same style.

The front and west elevations are finished in painted render; the south elevation and the flat-roofed extension are finished in roughcast. The gabled roof is slated. Rainwater goods are PVC.

Vennel Street has a long and layered history. Before the building of the Coast Road in the 1830s, it was the main 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 reflects its character as the least desirable of the village's four main streets. The earliest leases relating to the area, dating from 1743 onwards, refer to it as the "Stinking Vennel" or "Stinking Vennel Street" and repeatedly mention waste tenements. John O'Hara's map of 1779 shows many small, densely packed dwellings along both sides of much of its length. Over the following century and a half the housing was progressively replaced: the 1832 Ordnance Survey map shows a large gap on the south side; annotations to the second valuation records indicate much rebuilding on the north side after 1859; and Ordnance Survey plans and photographic evidence from the early 1900s suggest that most of the present south side is of early 20th-century date.

On the 1859 valuation map, a group of eight small dwellings occupied the site of the present terrace of five houses (nos. 11 to 19). By the 1903 Ordnance Survey plan, six properties were marked, and photographs from around 1910 show that the eastern portion of the terrace then consisted of dilapidated single-storey dwellings, with two-storey ones to the west, all markedly different in appearance from the present buildings. This evidence suggests the entire terrace, including no. 11, was built after that date. The western end of the terrace (nos. 11 to 15) appears to be slightly later than the eastern end and may date from as late as 1930: the Antrim Papers held at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland contain plans for three proposed "kitchen houses" in Vennel Street which appear to date from that year and seem to relate to this group of properties. The owner of the neighbouring property, no. 13, stated her belief that the group had been built through the efforts of "Lady Antrim", apparently referring to Angela, mother of the present Earl. If correct, this would be consistent with a date of around 1930.