Methodist Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A small neo-gothic hall type church with gable facing Irish Green Street three bays wide and four bays deep built of a quasi-snecked basalt trimmed with yellow brick, pitched roof having natural Bangor blue slates. Three steps rise to centrally placed pointed entrance door with narrow pointed lancets on either side and above a group of three lancets, centre one slightly taller, all trimmed in yellow brick. Massive double stepped buttresses on each side of entrance gable terminating in single sandstone moulded pinnacles. The quoins of the buttresses trimmed with brickwork. String courses of brick horizontally break up the gable. The gable apex finished with an odd angular finial. Four tall pointed lancets line each of the long walls bound by brick. There are no buttresses at the rear gable but the quoins are edged with the pervasive yellow brick. Sandstone barge stones finish the gables and a chimney, now defunct on top of rear. The combination of basalt and yellow brick makes a bizarre impression.

To the side of the church and in line with the rear gable is the minister’s residence, a two storey three bay wide smooth rendered and painted house. The church is sited about 10 metres from the footwalk of Irish Green Street and a low wall and gates and railings form boundary. Behind the church and linked to it is a flat roofed church hall and in the link a minister’s room.

Historical information

This church was established in 1877 and replaced an earlier building, no longer extant which was situated up an entry at the east end of Main Street (see Ordnance Survey Map 1830s) and referred to as a Wesleyan chapel (erected in 1830). Earlier still in 1773, a chapel was erected on the other side of Main street adjacent to the entrance to Christ Church.

The present church was designed by Edward McNerlage and cost £700. In 1878 a loan of £400 was obtained from the Commissioners of Public Works to build a residence. Irish Green street at this time was called Market Street.

References:
Primary Sources:

OS Map ' Town of Limavady sheet 1'(1895) PRONI:o58/120/1a/2 - undated but likely 1895
Griffiths Valuation 1858

Secondary Sources
D Girvan, 'The Buildings of north Derry' UAHS 1975 p15
'Ordnance Survey Memoirs Vol. 9 Co Londonderry II'.
S P Mitchell, The Land of the Roe
Rev. Atkinson, present minister (1998)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A small neat neo-gothic hall church in an inappropriate Victorian combination of materials namely dark basalt and yellow brick. However it is a compact positive statement projecting the tenacity of the Methodist Congregation in Limavady..