Session Room

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single storey gabled building, three windows wide to the main front. Main front faces south onto main street but entrance is in rear elevation, facing north.

South elevation: roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses with an angled chimney to each extremity of ridge. Walls of roughcast render using wet dash of pebbles and crushed stones; smooth cement borders to extremities; projecting plain smooth cement plinth and eaves course. Cast iron gutter and downpipe. Three windows, tall Gothic lancets, set in smooth cement surrounds with cusped heads; projecting stone cills; cast iron lozenge pattern glazing bars, painted white.

West gable of similar walling, with verges of smooth cement render; small chimney at apex, sitting at angle, of roughcast finish with plain projecting course; one modern pot. Two windows, Gothic arched lancets, set in slightly projecting surrounds with projecting painted concrete cill. Windows are timber Gothic arched, vertically hung sliding sash, 4 over 4, with horns; exposed sash box.

Rear elevation of similar materials as previous: one rectangular modern flush timber door to left hand side, with plain wooden frame, set in plain smooth cement surround; modern metal handle; PVC cylindrical sheathing to wires emerging through top of door frame. To right of doorway, a Gothic arched window of similar detail to west gable.

East end of building adjoins a higher gable of neighbouring building, with a half chimney of angled plan abutting it.

SETTING: The building stands overlooking the main street but set within the grounds of the Presbyterian church. It forms part of a semi-formal arrangement with the adjacent Sexton's House on the other side of the main gateway to the church, framing the view of the church itself which is set back from the street front. Main gateway to church grounds has a low curving screen wall, of roughcast with broad concrete copings surmounted by plain modern iron railings, connected to the Session Room by a short return wall. Area to side and rear of building covered with lawns.

Historical information

Precise date of building not recorded but probably 1839 as it may be taken as contemporary with the Presbyterian Church with which it and the adjacent Sexton's House forms a group, and therefore probably by the same architect as the church, John Millar.

References - Primary Sources
1. Inscription on arch of doorway of Crumlin Presbyterian Church.
2. OS Map 1858, Co Antrim 59.

Secondary Sources
1. UAHS, West Antrim (Belfast, 1970), p 8.
2. C.E.B. Brett, Buildings of County Antrim (UAHS, Belfast, 1996), p 54.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

This is an example of an early 19th century building in Gothic Revival style which retains its exterior features and forms part of an attractive group along with the Presbyterian Church and Sexton’s House with which it is associated.