24 Toberwine Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Large three storey terrace building of c.1870 comprising of two shops, with recessed late Victorian shop fronts, and two apartments over. To the rear is a very large recently added return. No.24 is the shop to the south side. The property is set within the terrace on the E side of Toberwine Street.

The front façade is symmetrical and faces roughly W. To the ground floor are two (virtually) identical (but handed) shop fronts, each with an outer doorway leading to the upper level apartment.

The the ground floor façade, i.e. the shop fronts and apartment doors, are all recessed below a plain timber signboard which has a plain projecting cornice. To the far left is a four-panelled timber door (leading to no.20- a first floor apartment) with tall plain fanlight with elliptical head. To left is a narrow panelled pilaster jamb, whilst to right is a similar but much wider pilaster. To the immediate right of this is the 8-pane shop-door (no. 22) which has a fanlight as before. The right side of the door is a narrow pilaster, as far left. In front of the pilaster is a slender cast iron column. To immediate right of this is a plain rendered stall riser, above which is a large six-pane shop window with elliptical headed upper panes. A relatively recent looking wrought iron ‘cheval de fris’ sits on the window sill. To the right is a plain projecting pier. The right of this is another shop front as before but handed, and with a panelled timber shop door.

To the first and second floors are four evenly spaced windows with bevelled reveals and sash frames with horizontal astragals (2/2). The first and second floors are finished with painted render with in-out quoins. There is a dentilled eaves course.

The N and S gables rise above their 2-storey neighbours. Both are blank and finished in painted render and rise to a large rendered chimneystack.

The ground floor of the rear façade is dominated by a massive modern single storey extension with a flat roof merging (to E) with a shallow pitched gabled roof. This obscures all but the extreme left side which has a modern door. There may be another doorway to the far right, but this section of the elevation was obscured from view. The first and second floors are symmetrical with four windows apiece two to far right and two to far left. The outermost windows are taller and all have modern frames. The rear façade is finished in unpainted rough cast.

The gabled roof is slated. Cast iron rw goods.

Historical information

TOBERWINE STREET
Toberwine Street (‘Street of the ‘sweet well’) may represent the original area of settlement within the village of Glenarm, its narrowness betraying something of its antiquity. 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 court house. The castle itself was deliberately ‘broken’ by Sorley Boy MacDonnell in 1597 and, seemingly, not repaired- Sorley’s descendant, Sir Randal McDonnell, building a new residence on the other side of the river. Some historians state that the old castle was occupied by tenants (and therefore presumably repaired in some fashion), in the later 17th century, but Richard Dobbs makes no reference to it in his 1683 description of the village.

The first mention of ‘Toberwine’ within the Antrim Papers appears to be in a lease of November 1672, which refers to a house within the area, with ‘Toberwine Street’ mentioned in a lease of August 1709. On John O’Hara’s 1779 map of Glenarm (the earliest extant plan of the village) the street is shown fully developed on both sides, with the market / court house to the south west end. There is no verifiable indication of any remains of the old castle shown on the map, but the remark made in the 1835 OS Memoirs concerning ‘the foundations of a very extensive old castle which stood at the centre of the town until a few years ago’ indicates that ruins of some kind may have lingered into the early 19th century.

Evidence provided by the valuation of 1833 suggests that most of the buildings we now see on the west side of the street were present (in some form) at that date and that many were probably 18th century. The east side of the street witnessed a much greater degree of development after 1833 however, with nos.4-12 all c.1840, and nos.20-34 and 62 post c.1860- some of the latter replacing modest single storey dwellings. There is evidence to suggest that large three storey former Antrim Arms Hotel (and possibly its neighbour no.56) may have been standing in the early 1830s, but this is not certain.

Nos.20-26
Annotations to the valuation plan of 1859 show that this building was constructed some time after this date. It design suggests that it make date from c.1870s. The OS town plan of 1903 shows that the building had a return at that date, but the present return is a late 20th century [?c.1980s] replacement.

In the early 1900s (and possibly before this), no.24 was Glenarm’s post office.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI D.2977/3A/4/65/2, 30, 34A, 36, 37A-B, 43-45, 70A-B etc. Antrim Papers Leases relating to property in ‘Toberwine’ / Toberwine Street, 1672, 1709, 1736/7, 1753 etc.
2 PRONI D.2977/36/3/1A Antrim Papers Map, showing the Town of Glenarm, plus Glenarm Castle and demesne, by John O'Hara, 1779. [Includes a list of the tenants in Glenarm town.]
3 Ulster Museum A view of Glenarm Castle (painting dating from some time between 1768 and 1812) [This painting also shows the town itself.]
4 View of Glenarm c.1769-c.1812 (painting in possession of Lord Dunluce)
5 “The town and castle of Glenarm, Co. Antrim” [1830] by T.M. Baynes in ‘Ireland illustrated’ (London 1831)
6 ‘Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland…’ vol.13 [c.1830-35] ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1992), p.127
7 PRONI OS/6/1/29/1 OS map, Co Antrim sh 29, 1832-33
8 PRONI VAL/1B/149 First valuation, Tickmacrevan parish, 1833 [The map to accompany this valuation is now lost making it extremely difficult, (and in most cases impossible), to tell which properties the valuation book is actually referring to. In some cases (most notably the west side of Toberwine Street) the writer has been able to successfully correlate the information contained within the second valuation notebook for 1859 with that of the first valuation, in order to decipher some of the details contained within the latter, but for most properties within Glenarm this has not been possible.]
9 Samuel Lewis, ‘A topographical dictionary of Ireland’ vol.1 (London 1837), p.658
10 William Makepeace Thackery, ‘Irish sketchbook’ (1843), p.238
11 Mrs and Mrs S.C. Hall, ‘Ireland: Its scenery, character etc., vol.III (London 1843), p.130
12 PRONI VAL/2D/1/11 Valuation town plan of Glenarm, 1859 [with later annotations- ?c.1900]
13 PRONI VAL/2B/1/41B Second valuation [notebook], village of Glenarm, 1859 [In the light of the problems concerning the first valuation this notebook and its accompanying map are both invaluable. For many areas the details of the second valuation only survive in the final printed form, with the names of householders and leaseholders and the rateable value for each property supplied only. For some areas, Glenarm among them, the working notebooks compiled by the valuers have survived, providing information such as dimensions of buildings, their use, the number of rooms they contain, notes on age and condition, and, (occasionally), comments regarding the overall appearance of properties. In many respect these notebooks closely resemble those of the first valuation, but frequently contain more detail.]
14 PRONI OS/8/103/1 OS town plan of Glenarm, 1903
15 PRONI VAL/12E/31/1 Valuation town plan of Glenarm, 1907-[1935]
16 PRONI VAL/3G/20/1 Valuation town plan of Glenarm. 1936-57

Secondary sources
1 C.E.B. Brett, ‘Historic buildings…Glens of Antrim’ (Belfast 1971), p.16
2 Eileen Black, “A view of Glenarm Castle” in ‘The Glynns- Journal of The Glens of Antrim Historical Society’ vol.7 (1979), pp.29-30
3 Jimmie Irvine, “A map of Glenarm- 1779” in ‘The Glynns- Journal of The Glens of Antrim Historical Society’ vol.9 (1981), pp.52-61
4 Hon. Hector McDonnell, “The building of the parish church at Glenarm” in ‘The Glynns- Journal of The Glens of Antrim Historical Society’ vol.10 (1982), pp.31-36
5 Felix McKillop, ‘Glenarm- A local history’ (Glenarm 1987)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Large three storey terrace building of c.1870 comprising of two shops, with recessed late Victorian shop fronts, and two apartments over. To the rear is a very large relatively recently added return. No.24 is the shop to the south side.The building has been extensively altered and is not of special architectural interest.