13-15 Toberwine Street, Glenarm, Ballymena, Co Antrim, BT44 0AP

13–15 Toberwine Street is a two-storey rendered terrace house on the west side of Toberwine Street in Glenarm, possibly dating from before 1832, though it has been heavily renovated and extended in the 1990s. It currently operates as a bed and breakfast and was formerly used as a shop. The property sits within a conservation area but does not meet the criteria for listing and is not considered to be of special architectural or historic interest. It was delisted on 23 January 2006.

The east-facing front façade is asymmetrical and finished in painted lined render with chamfered quoins. At ground-floor level to the left is a modern panelled half-glazed door with a plain rectangular fanlight above. To the right is a large triple sash shop window with Georgian-style panes (all 6/6 glazing), a plain timber signboard above, and a projecting timber cornice. This shopfront is a mock-traditional replacement; the original working shopfront, which appears to have dated from the early 1900s, was removed during the 1990s renovations. At first-floor level there are two evenly spaced sash windows with vertical glazing bars in a 2/2 arrangement, with a traditional-style projecting signboard between them. The roof carries a large timber-sheeted gabled dormer window, probably added in the early 1900s. This dormer has paired 2/2 sash windows to the front and small squarish windows to each side; its roof overhangs slightly and is finished with a plain bargeboard. The main roof of the original section is slated. Rainwater goods are a mixture of cast iron and PVC.

To the rear, a large full-width two-storey gabled extension was added in the 1990s. This is connected to the rear of the original front section by a narrow two-storey linking block, so that the three elements together enclose a small courtyard. The extension, the linking block, and the visible rear portion of the original section are all entirely modern in character, with large modern windows and doors throughout.

The site is shown as occupied on John O'Hara's 1779 map of Glenarm, the earliest surviving plan of the village, and on all subsequent maps. The present building is possibly the same structure — excluding the modern extension — recorded in the 1833 valuation as the home of Andrew and Eliza Boyd. By the time of the 1859 valuation, the building was recorded as containing two rooms below, four above, a garret, and a kitchen behind in the return. The property's history is therefore closely bound up with the wider history of Toberwine Street itself.

Toberwine Street — the name meaning "Street of the Sweet Well" — is believed to represent the original area of settlement within the village of Glenarm. Its narrowness suggests considerable antiquity. The original 13th-century castle of Glenarm, around which the village grew, is thought to have stood at the south-west corner of the street on the site now occupied by the former courthouse. The castle was deliberately demolished by Sorley Boy MacDonnell in 1597 and apparently not repaired, with his descendant Sir Randal McDonnell building a new residence on the other side of the river. Some historians suggest the old castle was occupied by tenants in the later 17th century and was therefore repaired in some fashion, but Richard Dobbs makes no reference to it in his 1683 description of the village. The first mention of "Toberwine" in the Antrim Papers appears in a lease of November 1672, with "Toberwine Street" named explicitly in a lease of August 1709. By the time of O'Hara's 1779 map, the street was fully developed on both sides, with the market and courthouse at its south-west end. The 1835 Ordnance Survey Memoirs refer to "the foundations of a very extensive old castle which stood at the centre of the town until a few years ago," suggesting that some ruins may have survived into the early 19th century. Evidence from the 1833 valuation indicates that most buildings on the west side of the street were present in some form by that date and that many were probably 18th-century in origin.