Ballyarnett Presbyterian Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Siting along the Racecourse Road set back 10m with long wall parallel to road. Entrance door on south gable. Five bays long, gabled, asbestos slates, pressed half round gutter, iron downpipe, plain ridge tile. Walls finished in roughcast rendering smooth plinth, plaster quoins. Entrance gable has a canted arched door with arched windows on either side. North gable two windows similar. Plaster architrave to windows and door with imitation short and long work. Plain timber barges and fascia, overhang on gable. Site bounded by a low wall widely spaced piers and galvanised railings. Single storey back return (minister’s room, meeting room) There is also a single storey blocked up cottage back to back with meeting room.

The church building is a very simple barn like statement restrained in the disposition of door and windows, without any projection. Apart from the semi-circular headed door with plain fanlight the only decoration is the moulded architraves in crisp plaster work with panelled keystone and widely spaced panelled blocking pieces. The wooden sheeted door is stained and fitted with applied neo-Gothic strapped hinges. Above the door a date plaque inscribed 1848.

Windows retain their sliding sashes with their 23 panes along the long sides and 20 panes on the gables.

The windows to the meeting room, sometimes referred to as the lecture room, and the back to back (now boarded up) cottage are square headed sliding sashes with 12 panes.

The church is sited within the former Ballyarnett racecourse on a generous site without graveyard. At right angles to the church building a new hall was erected in the 1960s. The architect was A T Marshall. Adjacent to the church site is a two storey three bay wide manse with two storey canted bays on either side of entrances. The bays were added during the occupancy of the Reverend Gregg.

Historical information

Ballyarnett Presbyterian Congregation was formed in 1847 as result of break with the Knowhead Congregation. Reverend McCreery was appointed minister and he first had to raise money to buy site, reclaim land for manse farm, build church, manse, school house and sexton’s house. Rev McCreery may have acted as architect. The congregation in their first year met initially in the racecourse gazebo for the church site is unique in being sited within a racing track.

The Griffith Valuation gives an exempt valuation for the church of £12.10s. 0d. in 1858.

Nearby within the townland of Shantallow was a National School, house, offices and model farm established by the Irish Society. An early photograph of the church shows it roughcast rendered, unpainted and without any architraves to door or windows.

References:

Primary Sources:
OS Map 2nd Edition 1848-52 Co Londonderry sheet 13
OS Map1904-5 Revision Co Londonderry sheet 14A
Griffiths Valuation 1858

Secondary Sources:
'Ballyarnett Presbyterian Church 1848-1998'-Comemorative booklet published by congregation.
Mr R J Clarke, Church Elder.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Many better examples of this building type. Not of special architectural or historical interest. Works carried out in 1971 degraded previous architectural character.