52 Toberwine Street, Glenarm, Ballymena, Co Antrim, BT44 0AP

52 Toberwine Street is a relatively plain, two-storey stuccoed terraced house of around 1840, probably originally built and used as a public house. It sits on the east side of Toberwine Street, with its front elevation facing roughly west.

The front elevation is asymmetrical and finished in painted lined render with in-and-out quoins. At ground floor centre is a panelled door with a plain rectangular fanlight above. To the right of the doorway is a single sash window, and to the left is a double sash window. The first floor has three evenly spaced sash windows of similar size. All openings have moulded reveals and painted stone sills. To the front roof slope there are two small gabled dormers with modern window frames, likely added in the early 1900s.

The gabled roof is slated. The gables have slight overhangs with plain bargeboards. At the north end of the ridge there is a rendered chimneystack with one modern pot; at the south side is a tall chimney attached to the three-storey gable of the neighbouring No. 54, which carries two unusual pots. Close to the ridge on both the north and south sides there is a small Velux window each. Rainwater goods are a mixture of cast iron and PVC.

The rear elevation is finished in plain painted render. To the upper left a small area of the original rear elevation survives, with a modern two-pane window in its centre. To the right of the rear is a two-storey gabled return, and to the left is a single-storey lean-to extension, both of which appear to have been added around 2000–01 and look recent in character. On the north side of the two-storey return is a narrow section of the main elevation, with modern windows to both ground and first floors. Elsewhere on the rear, there is a large modern patio-style window centred on the lean-to extension, a half-glazed modern door to its left, and a small modern window to the far right. To the rear roof there is a large central gabled dormer, also apparently recent.

The 1859 valuation notebook records a building on this site matching the dimensions of the present main section. It was described as licensed — that is, operating as a public house — with eight apartments and two garrets over, and was then in the hands of one Alexander McKay. The property appears to have continued as a public house until at least 1947, and was recorded as a private dwelling when first surveyed in June 1971.

The broader context of Toberwine Street is of considerable historic interest. The street name, meaning "Street of the Sweet Well", is thought to represent the original area of settlement within the village of Glenarm. The original 13th-century castle of Glenarm, around which the village developed, is believed 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 thereafter, with his descendant Sir Randal McDonnell building a new residence on the other side of the river. Some historians record that the old castle was occupied by tenants in the later 17th century, though Richard Dobbs makes no reference to it in his 1683 description of the village. The 1835 Ordnance Survey Memoirs note "the foundations of a very extensive old castle which stood at the centre of the town until a few years ago", suggesting ruins may have lingered into the early 19th century.

The first mention of "Toberwine" in the Antrim Papers appears in a lease of November 1672 referring to a house in the area, with "Toberwine Street" named in a lease of August 1709. On John O'Hara's 1779 map of Glenarm — the earliest surviving plan of the village — the street is shown fully developed on both sides, with the market and courthouse at the south-west end. A building or buildings is shown on the site of No. 52 on O'Hara's 1779 map and on all subsequent maps. Evidence from the 1833 valuation suggests that most buildings on the west side of the street were present in some form by that date, and many were probably 18th-century in origin. The east side of the street, however, saw considerably more development after 1833, with Nos. 44–52 (including this property) dating from around 1835–40, and a number of other properties to the east side built or rebuilt after around 1860.