Former court house (now Glenarm Baptist Church), 43-45 Toberwine Street, Glenarm, Ballymena, Co Antrim, BT44 0AP

Former court house, now Glenarm Baptist Church, of probable pre-1757 construction and possibly incorporating part of the ruins of a 13th century castle, but whose present appearance — with Italianate decoration to the tower and an enclosed lower floor — is the result of a remodelling carried out around 1840. The building is largely roughcast, with a slated gabled roof and Georgian-paned sash windows, and sits at the centre of the village of Glenarm on the corner of the narrow Toberwine Street and the equally narrow Castle Street, with tightly packed terrace houses and shops hemming it in to the north and west.

EXTERIOR

The building is two storeys with a four-storey tower. The long east-facing elevation onto Toberwine Street is asymmetrical. On the ground floor, to the far left, is a panelled timber door set within plain pilasters with an entablature and pediment. To the right of this is a square window with a Georgian-paned sash frame (eight panes over four) and moulded 'eared and heeled' surrounds topped with a segmental hood and keystone. Moving right, there is another doorway matching the first, then two more windows matching the one described. At first-floor level are five evenly spaced taller windows with Georgian-paned sash frames (eight panes over eight) and eared and heeled surrounds.

The shorter south elevation is also asymmetrical. To the left is an almost house-like section that appears originally to have been a separate property, absorbed by the court house sometime after 1903. This section has a panelled timber door at ground-floor level, a large window to its left with a double sash frame (Georgian-like panes, four over four on each side) and a smaller window to its right with a single sash (vertical glazing bars, two over two). At first-floor level are two further windows with sash frames (Georgian-like panes, four over four on each).

To the right of this house-like section, the building merges with the four-storey tower. At ground-floor level on the tower's south face is a window with a Georgian-paned sash frame (six over six). The first and second floors of this south face are blank, as are the equivalent levels on the north and west faces of the tower — these sides being abutted by the first-floor levels of the adjoining sections of the building. At third-floor level on the east face of the tower there is a tall narrow window with Georgian panes. At the uppermost level, all four faces of the tower carry an arcade of three tall-ish semicircular-headed niches with simple mouldings at arch-springing level and a linked moulding above the arches themselves. Below each recess there is a small rectangular opening, possibly a vent. The tower is topped with a shallow overhanging pyramidal roof with a fish weathervane.

To the right of the tower, the building has a curved corner bay with a flat roof. This bay contains a half-landing level window with a semicircular head, a thick moulded surround, and a Georgian-paned frame with arched tracery to the head. The bay has a moulded eaves course with a plain low parapet above.

The rear west and north elevations are utilitarian in appearance. On the ground floor of the longer west elevation there is a timber-sheeted door to the left, two relatively small windows to its right, and then another doorway. Both windows have sash frames with unusual vertical panes having top and bottom margins, while the doorway has a modern glazed door. At first-floor level on the left there is a partly glazed fire escape door leading to a concrete fire escape that runs against the gable of the neighbouring property to the north and, at a lower level, abuts the gable of an outbuilding to the west. Where the west elevation meets the short north elevation there is a small single-storey hipped-roof projection that appears to be the boiler house, with a low door on its west face. To the right of this projection, on the ground floor of the north elevation, is a timber-sheeted door. At first-floor level, centre-left, is a window with a sash frame (four over four, square panes).

The entire facade is finished in unpainted roughcast, with smooth render in-and-out quoins to the south and east elevations and much of the tower. There is a smooth render base to these elevations. The tower has a thin string course at fourth-floor level. The main sections of the building are gabled, with hipped roofs to the tower and the boiler house projection. Most of the roof is slated, but that covering the north elevation — the rear half of the roof of the Castle Street portion of the building — is covered in artificial slates. There is a large rendered ridge chimneystack to the north end of the building and a relatively recent-looking brick stack to the west end. Cast iron rainwater goods are present to the front elevations, with a mixture of materials to the rear.

HISTORY

The building has a long and somewhat obscure history. According to the Ordnance Survey Memoirs of around 1830 to 1835, the earliest reference to a court house within the village occurs in the Courts Leet records for 1757, when it is noted as having been repaired in that year. The original record appears to have been lost — the earliest surviving Court Leet book held in the Antrim Papers at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland dates from 1765 — but there is little reason to doubt the Memoir writer, since both he and the near-contemporary first valuation returns regarded the building as being of great age. The Memoir writer described it as 'a very rude clumsy old building', and the first valuation graded it 'C', meaning a building of more than fifty years old and probably considerably older.

How old the structure actually is remains uncertain. It is believed to occupy the site of the original Glenarm Castle, probably built around 1250 and partially pulled down by Sorley Boy McDonnell in 1597. It was apparently later repaired and, according to local historian Felix McKillop, was still occupied in the late 17th century. However, Richard Dobbs, who wrote a short description of Glenarm in 1683 and made reference to the town's principal structures, makes no mention of it. Whatever the fate of the castle, the thickness of parts of the present building's walls has led some to suggest that sections of the older structure survived within it. The 1835 Ordnance Survey Memoirs do, however, state that 'the foundations of a very extensive old castle which stood at the centre of the town until a few years ago' existed nearby, which could imply that the former court house does not correspond exactly in siting with the medieval stronghold.

The first valuation returns of 1833 record that the building at that stage consisted of the long main section fronting onto Toberwine Street and the tower. The tower was originally topped with a spire, but by 1812 this had fallen into such disrepair that the Court Leet ordered it to be removed and the stone and bricks sold to pay for the demolition. The first floor of the building housed the court room itself, while the largely open ground floor served as the market house. In the early 1830s the court room was also used for a time as a makeshift place of worship by the local orthodox Presbyterian congregation, following their split with the Unitarians.

Sometime between 1835 and 1843 the building underwent a major renovation: the ground-floor understorey was fully enclosed and the tower was refurbished in an Italianate manner. The writer William Makepeace Thackeray, visiting in 1843, described it as 'a town house with campanile in the Italian taste'. With the enclosing of the ground floor, that level ceased to function as a market house; the second valuation of 1859 records that it then contained a reading room, a dispensary, and two small rooms for the caretaker.

At some point, probably in the early 1900s, the court house appears to have absorbed the adjacent building to the west on Castle Street, which had previously been a private dwelling. The building's primary function as a court continued until the mid-20th century. It now serves as a Baptist church.

An 1830 illustration by T. M. Baynes published in Ireland Illustrated indicates that the tower had a shallow pitched roof at that date, suggesting the present overhanging pyramidal roof dates from the renovation of around 1833 to 1843. Two paintings — one held by the Ulster Museum dating from sometime between 1768 and 1812, and another of around 1780 in the possession of Lord Dunluce — both show the original spire of the court house still standing. A map of Glenarm town made by John O'Hara in 1779, held in the Antrim Papers at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, also survives from this period.