5-7 Toberwine Street, Glenarm, Ballymena, Co Antrim, BT44 0AP

5–7 Toberwine Street is a two-storey terraced building of possible pre-1832 origin, currently in use as a café with an apartment above. It sits on the west side of Toberwine Street, within the Glenarm conservation area, and forms part of a continuous terrace. Its construction date is estimated between 1820 and 1839, though documentary evidence suggests it could be earlier — the 1833 valuation notes the building was already well over twenty years old at that date, pointing to a possible late 18th or very early 19th century origin.

The front (east) elevation faces the street and is asymmetrical. At ground floor level, a panelled timber shop door sits just right of centre beneath a segmental arched fanlight, with a large plate glass shop window to its left and a matching doorway to its right. The entire ground floor ensemble — which appears to date from the late 19th or very early 20th century, perhaps around 1890 to 1910 — is framed by fluted pilasters with stylised capitals, and a painted signboard is set between the capitals. At first floor level there are two plain sash windows. This upper storey is finished in painted render with in-and-out chamfered quoins. The roof is largely concealed by an almost full-width flat-roofed dormer clad in timber, containing two large modern windows, which dates from around the 1960s and dominates the roofline. The original gabled slated roof survives beneath it but is largely hidden. To the far west of the site is a part two-storey outhouse, which spans the full width of the site and blocks any view of the main rear elevation.

The historical record for the building is reasonably detailed. On John O'Hara's 1779 map of Glenarm — the earliest known plan of the village — the site appears as part of a larger plot leased to a Robert Peoples (likely recorded elsewhere as "Pebbles"). Both the 1833 and 1859 valuations record a two-storey dwelling on this site with the same footprint as the present building. In 1833 it was in the hands of a Thomas White. By 1859 it had been leased from the Antrim estate by a James Fay (or O'Fay), was licensed, and described as containing a shop (used as a spirit grocer's or public house) and kitchen, four small rooms, and a garret. The property very likely had a shop or pub front at that date; the current shopfront, however, appears to be a later replacement dating from roughly 1890 to 1910.

Toberwine Street — whose name translates as "Street of the Sweet Well" — is considered to represent the earliest area of settlement within Glenarm. Its narrowness is thought to reflect its 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 courthouse. That 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 opposite side of the river. Some historians suggest the old castle was occupied by tenants in the later 17th century, implying some form of repair, though Richard Dobbs makes no mention of it in his 1683 description of the village. The name "Toberwine" first appears in the Antrim Papers in a lease of November 1672 referring to a house in the area, with "Toberwine Street" named explicitly in a lease of August 1709. By O'Hara's 1779 map the street was fully built up 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 some ruins of the original castle may have survived into the early 19th century. The 1833 valuation evidence indicates that most buildings now visible on the west side of the street were already present in some form by that date, and many are likely to be 18th century in origin.

The building was assessed for listing but does not meet the criteria and is considered to be of neither sufficient architectural nor historic interest to warrant protection. It was formally delisted on 23 January 2006.