Presbyterian Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A rectangular church with rendered walls and slated roof.

Main entrance faces east. East front comprises a two-storey gabled main block five windows wide, with a slightly lower gabled two-storey stair hall slightly set back to the left, which contains the main entrance.

Roofs of Bangor blue slates in regular courses with overhanging eaves; cast iron gutters and downpipes; white painted timber barge boards to each gable.

Windows of main block set in semi-circular headed openings. All but one on east front are vertically hung timber sliding sash, white painted, 6 over 6, with tracery lights, without horns, with exposed sash boxes; concrete cills, painted. Central window to ground floor is of stained glass.

Main entrance recessed in a two-centre arched opening with moulded cement surround; two-leaf Gothic arched door, timber, panelled; two concrete steps with modern iron handrails. Above doorway, a small iron lamp bracket with spherical glass light; above that, a white marble datestone inscribed ‘Cairncastle Presbyterian Church AD 1832’ in moulded cement surround with triangular top.
South gable two-storey, rendered as previous; two windows to each floor, arch-headed with raised cement surrounds; cills as previous; windows mainly fixed lights with horizontal glazing bars. Returning from the left extremity of gable is the gabled single-storey entrance bay to church hall at rear: two-centre arched doorway with rectangular timber panelled door, two-leaf, replacement, with plain fanlight, surmounted by white shield-shaped datestone inscribed ‘Lecture Hall 1891’, with overhanging white timber barge boards above. Wall to left of doorway one-bay, with flat roof, felt-covered, and small rectangular timber fixed light, two-pane, reeded and translucent glass. Beyond is taller, slated, pitched roof of the hall.

Rear elevation of church rendered as previous, without quoins; two large windows semi-circular headed, sashed as previous to entrance facade.

North gable similar to south with two windows in similar surrounds but containing stained glass. Projecting from north gable, an archway, smooth cement rendered to the front with unrendered red brick to the rear, single-storey height with rounded coping, containing a wrought iron pedestrian gate, original Victorian. Archway connected to a single-storey smooth cement rendered school of late 19th century appearance returning to the front facade of church. School slated and gabled with PVC rainwater goods and rectangular timber windows, modern, in plain unmoulded openings; rendered chimney to west gable.

SETTING: The church is pleasantly sited on a slight eminence above the main road, facing the road and set back from it beyond a lawn. Bounded to the front by a snecked basalt rubble wall with square corner piers and a pair of main entrance gate piers which are mounted with a pair of wrought iron gates, original Victorian and a secondary gateway to the north, comprising a pair of similar gates set in modern steel posts flanked by modern railings. Mounted in front boundary wall to left of gateway is a Victorian cast iron post box inscribed ‘VR’. Similar walls to side boundaries. On the lawn in front of the church is a stone memorial slab of mid-Victorian date but no special historic or architectural interest.

Historical information

The church was built in 1832, with the present porch, vestry, and gallery added in c. 1884 at which time the interior was rearranged with the pulpit moving from the long west wall to the short north wall and the original gallery on the long east wall being removed, and the pews re-aligned. The lecture hall to the rear was built in 1891, the front gates erected in 1892, and the school house from around the same time.

References - Primary

1. OS Map 1833, Co Antrim 35.
2. Inscription on building.

Secondary

1. H.R. Allen, A History of Cairncastle Presbyterian Church, 1832-1990 (Larne, N.D. [1990]).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A late Georgian church extended in the Victorian period. The many alterations have degraded the building's architectural worth.