Non-subscribing Presbyterian Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

One and half-storey church aligned W-E within a churchyard on the S side of Burren Road.

Pitched natural slate roof with advanced eaves carrying half-round cast-iron rainwater goods. Walls are wet dashed and painted with smooth rendered basecourse.

Principal elevation faces S. It has two windows either side of a central bow-fronted bay. All windows to this elevation are segmental-headed 8/8 sliding sashes with dressed granite architraves, key stones and cills. The bow-fronted bay has a curving natural slated roof which ties into front pitch of the main roof and shares its eaves. Its walls are as façade. The front face has a window (as the others), above which is a recessed semicircular blind niche with granite cill. The left and right faces of the bow fronted bay each have a replacement t+g sheeted entrance door at join with main block; that to left has a metal security grill over.

The left gable of church has a 6/3 segmental-headed sliding sash window with granite cill to centre of first floor. The right gable is identical.

The rear elevation of church is abutted roughly to centre by a one-and-a-half-storey return. The exposed sections of the main wall each have a segmental-headed 6/6 sliding sash window with granite cill set to immediate left and right of the return; both have metal security grilles over. The E wall of the return is canted inwards to avoid abutting the left window, suggesting that the return may originally have been single storey or is a later addition.

The return is detailed as main church. Its pitched roof ties into the main roof but has slightly lower eaves level. It has a dashed chimney on its (N) end gable. Its right (W) cheek has a 6/3 sliding sash window (without cill) to centre of each floor and a t+g sheeted door set at join with main block. Its left (E) cheek has a small fixed single-paned timber framed window set half way up wall at join with main block. End gable of return is blank. All these openings have security grilles over.

Setting

The churchyard is enclosed to road by a high dashed wall. At its W end is a pair of plain wrought iron gates with dog bars, and its bars have ball-topped scrolls and are hung on cylindrical dashed posts in a concave screen.

The churchyard is all grassed with occasional mature yew trees. The memorials are grouped mostly around the immediate S of the church and the rest of the yard is mostly vacant with exception of some 19thC memorials and yews at E end. The W, E, and S boundaries are enclosed by modern housing developments. To immediate rear of the church is a car parking area covered in stone chippings.

Historical information

Erected 1806. Bradshaw, writing in 1819, notes: “near the village stands the new Presbyterian meeting house, lately erected on the site of the old one, on a very convenient plan”. Shown as a cruciform building on the 1834 OS map. The 1836 Ordnance Survey Memoir notes that it cost £500, raised by public subscription, and contained a large gallery and seats capable of accommodating 420 people.

A plaque in the church states that it was re-opened in August 1977. It is presumed that prior to that it was refurbished and remodelled. The photographs from the Historic Monuments Record show the original plaster ceiling centres. The large central one was a thin guilloche ring with a zigzag inset. The two lesser ceiling centres are shown to have been small patera ringed by a delicate bay leaf garland. The ceiling centres in the church, although reproduction, bear no resemblance to the original ones.

Primary Sources:
1. Three photographs (1950-60) held in the Historic Monuments Record of Northern Ireland, at 5-33 Hill Street.
2. HMBB first survey card dated 01/12/1969.
3. Ordnance Survey Memoir, 1836, Co Down: Warrenpoint Parish.

Secondary Sources:
1. M. Jope (ed), ‘An Archaeological Survey of Co Down’ (Belfast: 1966), p.350.
2. T. Bradshaw, ‘General Directory of Newry, Armagh, etc’ (Newry 1819), p.30.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

This little altered early 19thC church is T-plan. It has a fine well-detailed interior with galleries to three sides and a good bow fronted pulpit. Original boxed pews.