Former Derryall Methodist Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

This two-bay Methodist church has a simple gabled form with lightly scribed rendered brick walls and slate roofs. The church is orientated N-S, with a gabled single-storey entrance vestibule centred on the front elevation to the south and a single-room vestry return attached to the NE corner. The church is situated on Derrycarne Road, formerly Crabtreelane, close to the junction with Derryall Road in the Birches, Craigavon. It forms part of a cluster of buildings centred on the crossroads that includes listed former Post Office HB14/01/012 and former Sunday School, Derryall Hall. The church sits behind a waist-height rendered wall with semicircular coping; square gate pillars with pyramid copings and a wrought iron gate form a central gateway.

South elevation.
The principal elevation faces south onto Derrycarne Road. It is relatively plain and symmetrically composed with a single-storey vestibule porch that has a central semicircular-headed sash window (2/2) and two pattress plates marking the end of tie-rods that suggest concern at a point that the porch would detach from the main building. The entrance is on the east side of the entrance vestibule—a simple timber-sheeted door that abuts the main gable.
Ornament is limited to the ornately carved painted timber bargeboards that terminate in a Methodist Orb and cross motif attached to the gabled main and vestibule roofs. Both roofs have suffered storm damage, some verge slates are missing, and the right-hand bargeboard of the vestibule roof has detached.

West elevation.
The west elevation has two large semicircular-headed sash windows with Georgian panes (9/6); the upper sections have radial tracery.

North Elevation
The rear elevation (N) is plain except for two semicircular-headed windows with Georgian panes (6/3). Both have yellow glass and radial tracery in the upper sections. Stone skews mark the roof verge, distinguishing it from the front elevation.

East elevation.
The East elevation has two large semicircular-headed sash windows matching those in the West elevation—Georgian panes (9/6); the upper sections have radial tracery. A small single-storey return is attached to the NE corner with a slate lean-to roof, a single window, and a timber-sheeted door (S) that provides secondary access.

Roof: natural Welsh slate
Walling Brick with ashlar-scribed sand cement render finish
Window: Timber, multi-paned, single-glazed
RWG: cast iron

Historical information

This former church is not present on the revised OS map of 1859 but is recorded - as ‘Primitive* Wesleylan Chapel’ - in the 1862 valuation book. Locally, it is said have been built in 1860 in the wake of the ‘Great Revival’, the resurgence in Christian (though predominately Presbyterian) conversion that had spread throughout Ulster the previous year. The Methodist Historical Society of Ireland dates it to the Revival year of 1859 itself.

The identity of the architect (if any) is not known. It is probable that a local skilled builder was instructed to adopt the basic gabled single-cell hall with porch design that had already been employed by many Methodist congregations throughout Ireland, (particularly those in less affluent rural areas), and which was to continue to prove popular in subsequent years. In some instances, these churches were deliberately intended as multi-purpose structures serving as both places of worship and spaces for educational / secular activity, such as Sunday schools or lectures. Consequently, more obtrusive ‘ecclesiastical’ features – such as fixed pews at Derryall - were avoided.

The building is shown on the 1905 OS map and captioned ‘Derryall Methodist Church’. The church was reported as having been ‘painted and repaired both inside and out…[and] the little sanctuary…greatly improved’ in June 1938, with the fitting of ‘Calor gas’ said to have been carried out at this time also. Further renovations and (re)painting took place in June 1959.

Due to shifts in the local population, the Derryall congregation merged with that of Derryanvil / Derryanville nearer Portadown in c.1968 with services taking place in the latter church from then on. The former Derryall church was put up for sale in 1971 and is believed to have been sold the following year. It is simply captioned ‘hall’ on the 1982 OS map and all others thereafter suggesting it continued in community use for a time; however, it would appear to have become disused c.2000.

There is a small brick building at the crossroads to the south-west of the former church that was built in c.1855 as a Sunday school. Its construction appears to have mainly due to the efforts of Dawson Tate, a Portadown linen manufacturer, who intended the building to be used ‘free of charge to Protestants of all denominations for religious meetings, and also for holding meetings for any public philanthropic object…’. It is marked as a ‘Sunday School’ on the 1859 and 1905 OS maps, and a ‘hall’ on those after 1954.

[*The ‘Primitive’ Wesleyans were a sect of Irish Methodism that emerged following a split in the church in 1816, its adherents retaining the link to the Church of Ireland for the administration of sacraments, with the majority ‘Wesleyan Methodists’ entrusting this to their own ministers. For various reasons including the Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, the groups reunified in 1878.

References – Primary sources
1 OS map county series, Armagh sheet 5 - 1859, 1905; IG sheet 181-3 – 1954, 1964, 1970, 1982
2 PRONI VAL2B/2/24A Second valuation, Drumcree parish - 1862
3 ‘Portadown News’ – 24 September 1859, p.3; 13 August 1892, p.5; 29 October 1938, p.10; 12 June 1959, p.5; 28 May 1971, p.34; 4 June 1971, p.24
4 ‘Portadown Times’ – 10 June 1938, p.6

Secondary sources
5 Holmes, Janice, ‘Religious revivals in Britain and Ireland, 1859-1905’, (2001)
6 ‘The Oxford companion to Irish history’, ed. S.J. Connolly, (OUP, 1998), p.485

Online sources
7 Methodist Historical Society of Ireland - https://methodisthistoryireland.org
8 ‘A dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland’ - https://dmbi.online/index.php?do=app.entry&id=2219

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed
Not listed
Not listed
Not listed
Not listed

Evaluation

A Methodist church, originally Primitive Wesleyan, of simple gabled form, with a gabled entrance porch, built between 1859 and 1862 on Derrycarne Road, close to the junction with Derryall Road.
A post survey visit by the HBDB found a significant increase in damage to the eaves of the main roof (S) and porch and a process of window removal had commenced. The level of deterioration and loss of original fabric diminishes significantly the buildings suitability for listing.