Second Presbyterian Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Large plain two-storey gable-fronted Presbyterian church of c.1845, extended at the pulpit end and with flat-roofed extension added c.1975; large hall extension to the north c.1997-98.

The church is gabled, two-storey and has a rectangular plan form with tall hipped roof canted bay to rear. It is set in the north western corner to the rear of the original site. Large single-storey extension extends across the western side of the site attaching at the rear of the church building. Roofs to this extension are part pitched and part flat-roofed. On the southern side of the church is a small freestanding hall.

Roof is pitched and covered in black fibre cement slates; hipped roof to rear projecting bay has matching roofing. Verges are overhanging and have plain timber bargeboards; purlin ends are exposed on the eastern front. Timber fascia boards to the main roof fix directly to the wall without overhangs. Timber eaves to the projecting bay are overhanging with plain fascias. Rainwater goods are in uPVC. Walls are finished with limestone chip render and rest on a plain rendered plinth. The front façade is flanked with moulded render, in/out chamfered quoins. A small area above the projecting bay on the western façade is covered with slate. Window openings to the front façade have smooth decorative render surrounds and slim concrete sills. Window frames are timber replacements; the design of these appears to echo the design of the original frames. Doors include modern paired timber doors with fielded panels to the front and modern glazed timber panelled doors to the rear extension.

The attached extension is constructed in matching materials with fibre cement slates and limestone chipping to the walls.

The front eastern façade is symmetrical with a central semi-circular headed door opening; moulded surround with pilasters supporting an archivolt with diamond pattern keystone. A wide entrance platform is finished in modern ceramic tiles. To either side there is a flat-headed window opening while at first floor there are three evenly spaced semi-circular headed window openings.

South elevation ground floor has five evenly spaced flat-head window openings with five evenly spaced semi-circular headed openings to first floor. The window groupings are set on the left side of the façade leaving a large blank area to the right.

At the centre of the rear west façade is a tall canted hipped roof bay. On either canted face is a tall semi-circular headed window opening. The single-storey flat-roofed extension wraps around the bay (leaving only the upper portion visible) and links to the large hall to the north.

The north façade matches the south with five windows at each floor level.

Setting

The church is located on the western side of Garvagh Main Street. A break in the street-fronted terrace opens onto a graveyard, this rises to the west, where the church itself is located. On the left a wide driveway gives vehicular access to the graveyard. The addition of the hall extension has resulted in the building stretching onto land to the north side by two property widths; the sites are long and join at the western end creating a large ‘U’-shaped plot. The northern side of the site is used for car parking. A low rendered wall forms the street boundary; this has modern wrought-iron gates.

Set to the immediate south of the church is the small, detached hall; this is designed in a style similar to the church. It is gabled with a fibre cement covered roof, ruled and lined render walls with in/out quoins, render walls and replacement uPVC windows.

Roof fibre cement slates
Walling limestone dry dash
Windows timber
RW goods uPVC

Historical information

Garvagh Second or Main Street Presbyterian congregation is believed to have been founded in c.1773. On the OS six-inch map of 1832 the eastern end of the present plot is shown as occupied by a T-shaped building, which may have been the congregation's original place of worship, and is probably the ‘Seceding meeting house’ of the same shape recorded in the OS Memoirs of 1836 , ‘built about 70 years…[and] situate near the Associate Presbyterian meeting house', the latter shown a few plots further north along the same street on the 1832 map.

No new church is mentioned in Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary of 1837 but the present building is shown on the revised OS map of 1849-53, so it must have been built between these dates, perhaps c.1845 (although the present minister suggests 1850). The building is shown on the revised map with a small projection to the rear, a form it appears to have maintained until c.1975, when the building was extended by a bay at the western (pulpit) end and the flat-roofed addition built onto the rear. It was extended again in c.1997-98 when the large new hall was constructed to the northeast.

References- Primary sources
1 OSNI OS-6-5-18-1 (1832)
2 OS Memoirs of Ireland Vol.27 ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams, (QUB, 1994), pp.37, 57 (1836)
3 Lewis, Samuel, Topographical dictionary of Ireland, (London, 1837)
4 OSNI OS-6-5-18-2 (1849-53)
5 OSNI OS-6-1-21-3 (1904-05)
6 OSNI OS-10-5-18-15-2 (1924)
7 OSNI OS-11-41-5-1 (1974)

Secondary sources
1 NIEA File HB03.02.011 (c.1977- )

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Large plain two-storey gable-fronted Presbyterian church of c.1845, lengthened and extended c.1975. While of local interest, it is not among the best examples of the type and has been subject to extensive alterations and additions, with attendant loss of historic fabric and detail, that have seriously compromised its architectural and historic interest. The setting has also been degraded by the introduction of the extensions and new halls as well as the car parking. It is no longer of special architectural or historic interest.