Eskylane Presbyterian Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A rectangular rendered church with tall half-hipped slated roof, and lower flat roofed and pitched roof extensions to the rear. Main entrance faces north in north gable.

North gable has a central rectangular entrance flanked each side by a rectangular window. Entrance contains double doors, sheeted, with modern metal handle, set in a modern timber frame, with rusticated rendered surround. Shaped raised rendered plaque over main entrance, inscribed 'Erected 1760. Renovated 1959'.
Windows are rectangular timber sliding sash, vertically hung, 8 over 8, with horns, with exposed sash boxes, set in a raised rendered surround; projecting concrete cills.
Walling is rendered, wet dash of small stone chippings, painted, with slightly projecting smooth rendered plinth; rusticated rendered quoins to extremities; smooth rendered platband at side wall head level; projecting plain rendered coping to gable.
Half hipped roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses; moulded gutter with a PVC downpipe at right-hand end, angled back to discharge onto the main roof on the west elevation.
East elevation is three windows wide; windows similar to entrance front. Walling similar to entrance front, but quoins only on entrance front corner. Roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses. Cast iron guttering with cast iron downpipe.

Rear gable is half hipped, slated as previous. Walling is smooth cement rendered, lined and blocked; two windows, Gothic arched, with rendered horizontal drip moulding over; timber fixed lights comprising a rectangular pane surmounted by plain Y-shaped tracery.

Projecting from gable below windows is a single storey flat-roofed later extension; asphalt covering to roof; roughcast walls, painted; modern rectangular timber fixed lights, with some top-hung vents; modern double doors on east side, glazed, with modern metal handles; timber fascia; PVC gutter and downpipe. Extending to the south of the flat-roofed extension is a further modern extension in the form of a taller gabled hall of similar walling and windows; timber barge boards; sheeted rectangular doors; synthetic slates to roof.

West elevation of church is similar to east elevation.

In the south-west angle between the main rear gable of the church and the later extension is a small lean-to roughcast shed, with synthetic slates to roof, and PVC rainwater goods.

SETTING: The building stands in a very rural location, on a corner site in the angle between two roads. The ground immediately in front and to each side is laid with tarmac and forms a parking area; boundaries to front are formed by hedges, with bushes and grass to the area to the rear. Main gateway is on the west boundary, formed by low roughcast walls with wrought iron gates of no special merit; pedestrian gateway of similar materials on east boundary.

Historical information

Built in 1842 according to a plaque inside. The date 1760 inscribed on the outside presumably refers to the date the congregation was formed; the building does not appear on the OS map of 1833. Renovated in 1959 and again in 1978; gates presented 1963; hall added to rear in 1992.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1858, Co Antrim 44 (marked as 'Covenanters' Meeting Ho.').
2. Plaque over main entrance and plaque in vestibule.

Secondary Sources
1. Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland, A History of Congregations in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland 1610-1982 (Belfast, 1982), p 473.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is an early 19th century building which has now lost some of its original character and some of its original features due to inappropriate alterations, and which appears to have been of limited architectural or historic interest in its original condition.