Methodist Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

An early 19thC L-shaped church aligned N-S on the W side of High Street.

Pitched natural slate roof with tiled skews. There is a cement-rendered chimney to projecting E gable of E elevation. Half round metal rainwater goods. Walls are lined and cement-rendered with stepped quoins over a slightly advanced base course. All windows are semi circular headed lancets with stone cills (unless otherwise stated).

S gable is abutted to left of centre by a large projecting entrance porch (which, due to the topography, drops to a driveway at lower ground level). The exposed section is blank. Porch is detailed as church. S face contains two 4/5 sliding sash lancets with Y-tracery head. E cheek contains a door consisting of four diagonally sheeted panels with a semi-circular traceried fanlight over. It is set in a stone surround with keyblocked head and is accessed by two stone steps. W cheek is blank.

E elevation is abutted to right a full-height gabled transcept (now containing a Sunday school and all detailed as church). The exposed left section of nave has two timber Y-traceried windows (detailed as before) set in keyblocked stone surrounds.

The transcept gable has two lancets in plain reveals. Left cheek has a diagonally sheeted timber door to left and a lancet (as gable) to right. N elevation has two lancets.

N gable of nave has three windows (that to centre is taller), sharing a common cill.

W elevation has two equally spaced windows (as E elevation).

Setting:
To E is a paved area raised over a cement-rendered boundary wall (this forms the base course of the transcept gable) and enclosed by a modern metal railing. The paved area is reached by 11 stone steps and is enclosed to S by a stepped cement-rendered boundary wall with saddle coping. Set into this wall, just to left of the entrance door, a plaque inlaid in the wall reads ‘The / Primitive Wesleyan / Methodist / Preaching House / Erected / 1834’. Accessed by a decorative cast-iron gate (maker’s mark reads
‘McIlroy / York Street / Belfast’) supported on square-in-section chamfered sandstone piers with shallow pyramidal coping.

Historical information

The datestone attests to the erection of this church in 1834. According to the Ordnance Survey Memoir it was founded by a breakaway group from the Methodist congregation which had a meeting house elsewhere in the town (HB12/02/032). It could accommodate 450 people and was styled ‘Primitive Wesleyan’. It is depicted in the 1834 and 1857 OS 6” maps as Methodist Meeting House, and on the 1907 edition as Methodist Church.

Primary sources:
1. Ordnance Survey Memoir, Galloon Parish, Co Fermanagh (1835).
2. OS 6” map, 1st edition (1834), Co Fermanagh sheet 40 (PRONI OS 6/4/40/1).
3. OS 6” map, 2nd edition (1857), Co Fermanagh sheet 40 (PRONI OS 6/4/40/2).
4. OS 6” map, 3rd edition (1907), Co Fermanagh sheet 40 (PRONI OS 6/4/40/3).
5. Datestone.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

A very pleasant Methodist Church prominently located by the roadside in Newtownbutler Village. It retains a lot of internal character with many original features intact, but its setting is compromised by the location of the police station directly behind.