SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AND HALL

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Gothic-style three-bay gabled Presbyterian church of random rubble local schist with Barony Glen sandstone dressings. Set within a compact site containing a church hall to the North side and a former school house to the South side. Built in 1847 to designs by Stewart Gordon; rectangular on plan with the rear elevation facing onto North Edward Street overlooking the City Factory (HB01/21/007). Principal elevation faces East onto Strand Road, set behind a low reconstituted stone and concrete wall with piers and iron railings above, within close proximity to the River Foyle to the North East.

Principal elevation faces East with a projecting central bay containing a Gothic-style arched doorway under an ogee hood-moulding with narrow angled and diagonal ashlar schist and sandstone buttresses; the entrance doorway is approached by a short flight of wide concrete steps with a concrete ramp to the left side with painted handrails; the central bay is flanked by tall lancet windows with a wider lancet light directly above the door; there are pointed pinnacles on each corner to schist walling. Two-stage octagonal sandstone tower (60ft high) above central bay with lancet openings, alternately infilled by blind timber panels and timber ventilation slats.

South elevation to the Nave is of random rubble schist and sandstone, five-bays wide with painted stone surrounds to lancet light windows; cast-iron guttering on out-and-up iron brackets discharging to a uPVC downpipe. South elevation is abutted to the rear by a high rendered boundary wall to North Edward Street.

West (rear) kneelered gable-end elevation faces onto North Edward Street overlooking the City Factory (HB01/21/007). Rendered painted finish with coping stone; two tall lancet windows with painted stone surrounds and metal mesh grilles.

North elevation is of smooth-rendered unpainted finish abutted by adjoining church hall along its entire length. Exposed section has five equally spaced Gothic-style arched windows rising above the roofline of the adjacent hall.

Abutting the North side of the church is a 1960s rock-faced concrete hall with rendered dressings which projects forward from the church and school building; of little historic interest.

Pitched slate roof to main church has black clay ridge tiles with two copper ventilation cowls centred on ridge.

To the immediate south of the church is a former school building, built 1850; random rubble schist walls to east gable-end elevation with a sandstone bellcote at apex. East elevation is abutted by a single-storey rectangular flat-roofed battlemented entrance porch with rendered 'lined-and-marked' unpainted walling containing a centrally placed shouldered window opening on a sandstone sill. North side of porch has a shouldered door opening with chevron timber sheeted double doors with plain overlight. South side of the porch is blank. South elevation to Patrick Street has four shouldered window bays on stone sills; north and west elevations to the school building are abutted by a rendered ruled and lined extension which has a shouldered-window bay to the right of a shouldered door opening on its south elevation. uPVC rainwater goods to former school house; slated pitched roof has black clay ridge tiles.

Materials:
Roof Natural Slate
RWG Cast-iron & PVC
Walling Local schist and Barony Glen sandstone
Windows Lancets with coloured glass and margin panes.

Setting:
Located on the West side of Strand Road, set behind a low reconstituted stone and concrete wall with piers and iron railings above. Principal elevation faces East onto Strand Road with the City Factory to the rear, west side, facing onto North Edward Street. Set within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area.

Historical information

Londonderry Second Presbyterian Church, a gothic-style meeting house located on the Strand Road, was constructed in 1846-47.

The Strand Road had been laid out by 1780. Originally known as the ‘new road’ to Pennyburn, the thoroughfare has been known as the ‘Strand Road’ since the 1830s. In 1849 a local newspaper noted that the development of the Strand Road commenced with the reclaiming of land along the river: ‘a good deal of land where the buildings now stand has been reclaimed from the tide; and on the other side of the road, the site where the Second Presbyterian Church was recently built was formerly covered with water during the winter’ (Londonderry Standard). The church was built to designs by Stewart Gordon (d. 1860), Londonderry’s County Surveyor who had also erected the Scot’s Church (also known as Londonderry Third Presbyterian Church – see HB01/21/009) on Great James Street in 1835-37. Gordon’s gothic design for Londonderry Second Presbyterian is markedly different than his neo-classical treatment of the Scot’s Church. The Natural Stone Database records that Gordon utilised locally quarried Derry Schist and Scottish Barony Glen Sandstone in the masonry of the new church. The total cost of constructing the church came to £1,450 (DIA; NSD).

Despite now being known as Londonderry Second Presbyterian Church, the church on the Strand Road was in fact the third Presbyterian Church to be built in the city at the time of its completion. When originally built in 1835-37, the Scot’s Church on Great James Street was known as Londonderry Second Presbyterian, but with the construction of the church on Strand Road the names were switched. The reason for this change in name lies in the early history of the Strand Road congregation. The congregation of Londonderry Second Presbyterian Church was originally formed in 1780 as a seceding church known as the First Derry Secession congregation. The congregation met for over 60 years at the original meeting house, a small building located off Fountain Street close to the city walls. In 1840 the Synod of Ulster and the Seceding Synod united to form the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church and as a new member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church First Derry Secession congregation was renamed Second Londonderry and (as a more recent congregation) the Scot’s Church was redesignated Londonderry Third Presbyterian.

By the 1840s the congregation of Second Londonderry had outgrown the small meeting house at Fountain Street. The relocation of the congregation to the newly established residential suburbs north of the city followed a general trend of the period. John Hume records that the population of Londonderry only truly began to spread beyond the city walls from the early-1800s. By the 1830s the construction of new meeting houses was made necessary as Presbyterians had become the largest denomination within the city walls. Hume notes that ‘their birth rate was probably higher than that of other groups and half the population in the rural districts adjacent to the town was Presbyterian’ (Hume, pp 35; 147).

During the ministry of the Rev. James Crawford The Honourable The Irish Society gave a ‘liberal subscription’ and the current plot of land on the Strand Road, for the construction of a new church for the congregation. The foundation stone was laid on 3rd September 1846 by James Anderson, the Deputy Governor of the Irish Society and the completed church was opened for worship on 12th March 1848 with the Rev. Henry Cooke of Belfast delivering the first sermon (Strand Presbyterian Church Booklet). The new church was first depicted on the second edition Ordnance Survey map (1853) which depicted the building as a simple rectangular-shaped building captioned ‘Presbyterian Meeting Ho[use].’ The Presbyterian Historical Society notes that the adjoining school house was erected in 1850 (PHS).

The contemporary Griffith’s Valuation (1856) records that the church was owned by The Honourable The Irish Society and was originally valued at £80. The current church gallery was added in 1885 when the building underwent an extensive renovation that cost £1,700. The PHS notes that the church organ was installed during the ministry of the Rev. James Pyper between 1909 and 1940. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57) the value of the church and schoolhouse was increased to £280. The foundation stone of the adjoining church hall was laid on 30th August 1960. The hall was designed by a Mr. G. H. Colhoun and was officially opened on 14th September 1961. By the end of the Second Revaluation (1956-72) the total value of the church, school house and church hall stood at £592.

Generally seen as one of Stewart Gordon’s lesser efforts, in comparison to his neo-classical church on Great James Street, Londonderry Second Presbyterian was described by Rowan as ‘a plain Gothic hall … octangular central tower ending in thin pinnacles ... Hardly an accomplished design.’ In 1970 the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society described Londonderry Second Presbyterian (in similarly mute terms) as ‘a hall-type church, neo-Gothic in design. Over the entrance is an octagonal tower culminating in pinnacles and constructed in sandstone’ (UAHS, p. 30). In 1978 the Department of the Environment included the church in the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, ‘an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance’ (Londonderry Clarendon Street Conservation Area Booklet). Londonderry Second Presbyterian Church and its hall were subsequently listed in 1979.

Londonderry Second Presbyterian Church continued to be utilised as a house of worship until recently. During the Northern Ireland Troubles a high percentage of Protestants in the city migrated to the waterside resulting in a reduction in the congregations of the cityside (between 1971 and 1991 the Presbyterian population of the cityside decreased from 4,227 to only 656 – Northern Ireland Census). Londonderry Third Presbyterian was closed by 1982 as a result of this shift, although the congregation on the Strand Road weathered the changes and continued to worship from the site until 2010. A commemorative booklet charting the congregation’s history was published in 2010 to mark the closure of the church. The writer notes that the congregation survived during the turbulent years of the Troubles by forming links with other congregations in Inch, Burt and Buncrana. Despite this survival, the congregation of Londonderry Second Presbyterian vacated the church on the Strand Road in 2010 due to declining membership and the poor repair of the buildings. The Londonderry Sentinel noted that ‘substantial investment would be necessary to repair the current buildings; most members now no longer live in the parish area [and] there continues to be a decline in young families in membership’ (Londonderry Sentinel)

References

Primary Sources
1. Presbyterian Historical Society File: Strand Road Presbyterian Church
2. PRONI OS/6/5/20/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1830)
3. PRONI OS/6/5/20/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1853)
4. PRONI VAL/2/B/5/16G – Griffith’s Valuation (1856)
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/32/11B-ZA – Annual Revisions (1862-1897)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/33/2C-2F – Annual Revisions (1898-1931)
7. PRONI VAL/3/C/6/10 – First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57)
8. PRONI VAL/4/B/5/14 – Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956-72)
9. O’Hagan’s plan of Londonderry (1847)
10. Londonderry Standard (5 July 1849)
11. Ulster Town Directories (1852-1918)
12. Northern Ireland Census (1971; 1981; 1991)
13. Londonderry Sentinel (15 Sept 2009)
14. First Survey Record – HB01/21/011 (1970)
15. NIEA HB Records – HB01/21/011

Secondary Sources
1. ‘Strand Presbyterian Church Booklet’ Londonderry: Londonderry Second Presbyterian Church, 2010.
2. Baillie, W. D., ‘A history of congregations in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland: 1610-1982’ Belfast: Presbyterian Historical Society, 1982.
3. Calley, D., ‘City of Derry: An historical gazetteer to the buildings of Londonderry’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 2013.
4. Ferguson, W. S; Rowan, A. J; Tracey, J. J., ‘List of historic buildings, groups of buildings, areas of architectural importance in and near the city of Derry’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1970.
5. Hume, J., ‘Derry beyond the walls: Social and economic aspects of the growth of Derry 1825-1850’ Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 2002.
6. Rowan, A. J., ‘The Buildings of Ireland: North West Ulster’ London: Yale University Press, 2003.
7. Williams, J., ‘A companion guide to architecture in Ireland: 1837-1921’ Dublin: Irish Academic Press Ltd, 1994.

Online Resources
1. Dictionary of Irish Architects - http://www.dia.ie
2. Natural Stone Database website - http://www.stonedatabase.com/

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
T. Historic Importance
S. Authenticity
V. Authorship
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Gothic-style three-bay gabled Presbyterian church built in 1847 to designs by Stewart Gordon and adjacent former schoolhouse built in 1850, situated on the corner of Strand Road and Patrick Street overlooking the City Factory (HB01/21/007) to the rear on North Edward Street and located on the west side of the River Foyle. The church was originally owned by The Honourable The Irish Society and the church gallery was added in 1885 when the building underwent an extensive renovation. The church is constructed of random rubble local schist with sandstone dressings. The same stone has been used on the east elevation of the former school, with ruled and lined render to other elevations. Much external historic detailing remains. Of particular special interest is the 60ft high two-stage sandstone octagonal tower to the gable-end of the church. The Clarendon Street Conservation area is enhanced by the historic presence of this church and former school.