Coke Memorial Methodist Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Small late 19thC basilica plan church set back from S side of Church Street. Church is aligned NE-SW with small gabled porch to NE gable and modern halls to SW gable.

Pitched natural slate roof with crested terracotta ridge tiles and exposed rafter tails to eaves. Half round rainwater goods. On its ridge, slightly to the front of centre, is a square in section ventilator with splayed slated base tied into the roof pitches. Its timber cheeks each have a pair of short cusped lancet openings with scalloped louvres and fretted spandrels. It has a slender Germanic style copper spire with octagonal metal finial, overhanging eaves, and exposed timber rafter tails. Small chimney to apex of front gable of main roof is dressed as a Gothic gablet. Masonry skews with gablet coping to each end and on ridge at rear. Lean-to side aisle roofs have moulded kneelers. Walls are lined rendered and painted with chamfered base course. Painted finely dressed sandstone dressing to openings.

Front (NE) gable is abutted to centre by a narrow single storey porch with steeply pitched natural slate roof, detailed as that to nave but with very low eaves line. Walls as main church with single-stage gabled buttress to front end of each side wall. Entrance to front, up two granite steps, comprises a pair of wrought-iron Gothic gates within a two-order Gothic doorway with chamfered reveals and hood mould over. Gates consist of alternated twisted and plain bars (set to an angle) with crested finials. Dog bars have foliated detail enclosed within trefoils. Set in wall above is a flush granite plaque reading “THE/ COKE MEMORIAL/ METHODIST CHURCH/ 1885”. Above this, in gable apex, is a blind trefoil. Each cheek of the entrance porch has four small contiguous cusped lancet windows with splayed cills. All have plain leaded and coloured glazing with rectangular quarries. All windows are similarly detailed unless otherwise stated.

Above the porch, in front gable of main block, is a large Gothic opening with four slender cusped lancets above which, in the common spandrel, are two quatrefoils and a trefoil, all finely executed with splayed cill and hood mould.

Each NE cheek of the side aisles is flush with the front gable of the church. Each contains a Gothic opening containing two cusped lancets and a quatrefoil in their common spandrel. The left one has a rectangular granite plaque on the basecourse with moulded surround. Painted incised letters read, “WESLEYAN/ CHAPEL/ 1793”.

The side elevations of the nave are identical. They are completely abutted to ground floor by lean-to side aisle (see later). The exposed upper clerestorey level has five openings, each delineated by a single stage buttresses. All but the one to front end are circular eight-foil lights; the front one is a small cusped lancet.

Each monopitched roof of the side aisles has a steeply pitched wall-head gable to its rear (SW) end. The latter has a crested terracotta ridge and a Gothic window containing three tall cusped lancets with a quatrefoil in their common spandrel; above, in gable apex, is a blind trefoil. On wall to either side is a two-staged buttress. This gable is possibly mimicking the form of a transept.

The remaining side aisles walls each have seven cusped lancet windows arranged as three equally-spaced pairs, a single lancet to front end and are delineated by a two-stage buttress (that to front end is flush with the aisle front cheek).

Blank rear (SW) gable of church and the similar rear of the right side aisle are both abutted by the modern church hall (of no interest) which runs parallel to street and has shallow pitched natural slate roof and lined rendered walls. It advances beyond the NW side aisle. Its projecting front (NE) wall was retained from the former lecture hall and is rendered and painted. It has a Gothic headed t+g sheeted door with decorative strap hinges to right. Above it is a flush granite plaque reading “METHODIST/ LECTURE HALL/ 1904”. To its right are two lancet windows.

The opposite (SE) gable of the church hall is abutted by a flat roofed porch which advances beyond the line of the SE side aisle. Its front wall contains a modern recessed porch with pair of doors. At join between this porch and the left side aisle is a wide buttress, the only remnant of the building demolished for the erection of the hall.

SETTING

Front of churchyard is enclosed by a rendered dwarf wall carrying spear headed 19thC railings with moulded heads and bases and plain braces to rear. Left and right ends have pedestrian gates, each with finialed cast iron posts which carry gates detailed as the railings. Left boundary of church is a lane from street to the church hall at rear. Right boundary is formed by the gable of the adjacent shop and rear is formed by the church hall.

Historical information

A Methodist chapel was erected on this site in 1793 and remained in use until 1842 when the congregation moved to a larger church in Duke Street (now a Masonic hall). The present church was commenced in 1884 under the supervision of the Newry architect W.J. Watson; the contractor was Isaac Cunningham of Newry. The church was completed in 1885 at a cost of £1,500. It was named after Rev Dr Thomas Coke, an associate of John Wesley. Watson was also involved with Warrenpoint Presbyterian Church (HB16/11/017), and these two churches share similar details.

A lecture hall was constructed to the rear of the church in 1904. The present church hall was built in 1979, on the site of caretaker’s house and the earlier hall.

Primary sources:
1. Datestones.

Secondary sources:
1. Rev T. Holloway, ‘A History of Methodism in Warrenpoint’ (1935).
2. B.J. Orr, ‘Warrenpoint Methodist Church’, in Warrenpoint Historical Group Magazine, Spring 1984.
3. ‘Notes of Works’, in Irish Builder, 15 October 1880, p.284.
4. ‘Wesleyan Church Warrenpoint’, in Irish Builder, 15 March 1884, p.77.
5. G.H. Bassett, ‘County Down, a Guide and Directory’(Dublin 1886), p.181.

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
V. Authorship
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

This late 19thC church has many fine free-Gothic details and remains largely unaltered. It is the work of W. J. Watson, an accomplished and well known local architect who was also responsible for the erection of the tower and porch on the Presbyterian church (HB16/11/017).