56 Toberwine Street, Glenarm, Ballymena, County Antrim, BT44 0AP

56 Toberwine Street is a large, relatively plain three-storey stuccoed terrace house, probably built around 1835 to 1840, situated on the east side of Toberwine Street in Glenarm. It may originally have contained a shop, and in the early 1900s served as the local police station. The exterior, both front and rear, has been conserved, which is the primary reason it meets the criteria for listing at grade B2.

The front elevation faces roughly west and is asymmetrical. On the ground floor to the right is a panelled door with a three-pane rectangular fanlight above, each pane set within a segmental arch frame. To the left of the doorway are two sash windows with Georgian panes (six over six), and there are three more of the same type at first-floor level. At second-floor level there are a further three sash windows, similar in style but smaller (six over three). Windows to the first and second floors are without horns. The front facade is finished in painted lined render with plain quoins to the right (south) end. Cast iron rainwater goods are fitted throughout.

On the rear east elevation, the ground floor has three sash windows matching those on the front. The first floor has two such windows, one to the left and one to the right, and the second floor has three similar but slightly smaller windows, with the one to the far right set at a slightly lower level than the others. All rear windows have horns. The rear elevation is also finished in lined render. In the archway immediately to the north of the property — originally belonging to number 54 but now serving as a pedestrian alleyway — there is a doorway. The gabled roof is slated. Plain rendered chimney stacks stand at the south and north ends of the ridge, the northern stack being slightly taller; both carry modern pots.

The building is noted to contain roughly hewn roof timbers, which could suggest it is older than the estimated 1835 to 1840 date. However, the 1859 valuation graded the property 'A minus', implying it was probably only twenty to thirty years old at that point.

Toberwine Street — whose name derives from the Irish meaning 'street of the sweet well' — is thought to represent the original area of settlement within the village of Glenarm. Its narrow width hints at considerable antiquity. The original 13th-century castle of Glenarm, around which the village grew, is believed to have stood at the south-west corner of the street, on the site now occupied by the former court house. The castle was deliberately destroyed by Sorley Boy MacDonnell in 1597 and apparently not repaired; his descendant Sir Randal McDonnell subsequently built 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, though 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 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 court house at the south-west end. No identifiable remains of the old castle appear on the map, but a remark in the 1835 Ordnance Survey Memoirs referring to 'the foundations of a very extensive old castle which stood at the centre of the town until a few years ago' suggests ruins of some kind may have survived into the early 19th century.

Evidence from the 1833 valuation indicates that most buildings now seen on the west side of the street were already present in some form by that date and were probably of 18th-century origin. The east side of the street saw considerably more development after 1833, with numbers 4 to 12, 36 to 38, and 44 to 52 all dating from around 1835 to 1840, and numbers 14, 20 to 34, 40 to 42, and 62 postdating around 1860 — some of the latter replacing modest single-storey dwellings. There is some evidence that the large three-storey former Antrim Arms Hotel and possibly its neighbour number 56 may have been standing in the early 1830s, though this is not certain.

A building or buildings are shown on this site on O'Hara's 1779 map and on all subsequent maps. The present building is almost certainly the property recorded in the valuation notebook of 1859, then held by John Turnley and occupied by a James McNeill. The notebook describes it as a 'house and store' with a 'shop entered below, 2 good rooms over, walled-in garden and kitchen behind'. The building succeeded number 50 Toberwine Street as Glenarm's constabulary barracks (that is, the police station) around 1900, and remained in that use until a new station was built on the Carnlough Road in the 1930s. In the mid-1950s the property was acquired by the neighbouring Antrim Arms Hotel (number 54) and amalgamated with it. The hotel continued in business until 1973. In 1984 both number 54 and number 56 were acquired by Hearth Housing Association, and number 56 was converted for use as a dwelling house, which remains its current use.