Craigmore Presbyterian Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A small gabled church with Gothic arched windows, with a small gabled porch to one end and a small gabled vestry to the other end. Main entrance faces west.

Entrance elevation: asbestos slated roof to church with small red terracotta finial to each end; walls rendered with wet dash of crushed stones, with smooth rendered and raised quoins to extremities; projecting smooth rendered plinth. Windows are Gothic arched timber replacements, not original, comprising two fixed panes with a top-hung fanlight; translucent glazing; projecting concrete cills, painted. Metal gutters and downpipes.
Main entrance, in porch to north, is a rectangular ledged timber door, of herringbone pattern set in a plain rectangular opening. PVC gutter to porch with PVC and cast iron downpipe. Roof of porch is slated with Bangor blue slates in regular courses.
Vestry set back to south has asbestos slated roof; modern rectangular glazed flush timber door; modern rectangular timber window, fixed light with top-hung vent. Cast iron gutter with cast iron downpipe.
North gable of porch has one window: a modern rectangular timber two-light with top-hung vent; translucent glazing. In angle of porch and main church is a small lean-to corrugated iron shed.

Rear elevation of church has four Gothic headed windows, as previous to entrance elevation. Flat roofed extension to vestry at south end with modern rectangular timber windows in two sides; asphalt roof; metal gutter and downpipe; timber fascia.

SETTING: The building stands facing the road set back from it within its own churchyard, in a very rural location, with a distant view to Lough Neagh. It is bounded on three sides by hedges and by a rendered wall to the front. Entrance gateway of square rendered piers with double gates in plain and scrolling ironwork of no special interest. Concrete path from gates to church; grassed graves to each side; no memorial of special interest.

Historical information

Built in 1814; originally a stone building without roughcast; identified in the 1830s with the 'Primitive Seceders or Burghers'.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1829, Co Antrim 43 (appears as 'Presbyterian Meeting House').
2. OS Map 1858, Co Antrim 43 (appears as 'Seceders Meeting House').
3. OS Map 1903, Co Antrim 43 (appears as 'Presbyterian Church').
4. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Vol 19: Parishes of County Antrim VI, 1830, 1833, 1835-8 (Belfast, 1993), pp 47, 58, 83.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is an early 19th century church which has had its original appearance altered and is of no special historical or architectural interest.