Glengormley Presbyterian Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A double-height brick Presbyterian church, built 1957, located on the south side of Antrim Road. The plan is rectangular with a full-height canted chancel to south; transepts, wings and aisles to side elevations.

Pitched red clay tiled roof, round ridge tiles, painted moulded cast-iron gutters on rendered box eaves. Walling is stretcher-bonded red brick with pre-cast concrete dressings. Round-headed window openings in rectangular concrete surrounds having plain sills, leaded textured clear glass.

North gable has plinth and a double-height triangular-headed window divided by concrete mullions and having metal nameplate affixed to centre; apex has ventilation loop; slightly projecting brick square panels flank window and apex.

East elevation is abutted by a wing to right, aisle to centre, and transept to left. Exposed clerestorey has four tripartite windows. Left end of aisle is abutted by church hall linking block (of no interest), exposed section has three windows. Transept is abutted by double-height church hall, left cheek has one window, right cheek is abutted to ground floor by aisle and church hall linking block. Exposed section is blank. Wing is abutted to right end by tower, exposed section has one tripartite window. Left cheek is abutted at ground floor by aisle, exposed section is blank. Right cheek has round-headed double-height recess containing single square-headed leaded casement window at both floors (ground floor casement has stained glass).

Tower has setback buttresses to corners, brick and moulded concrete cornice; third stage elevations each have one timber louvred opening; second stage north and east elevations each have one window; first stage has square-headed entrance with splayed concrete surrounds, varnished timber raised-and-fielded three-panel double-leaf door; set in segmental pedimented porch supported on painted cast-iron piers, accessed by five concrete steps.

South gable is abutted by chancel. Exposed section is blank. Chancel has three double-height windows with stained glass.

West elevation is detailed as east elevation (but without abutments); clerestorey and aisle have three windows each, transept has two and wing has one. Wing right cheek abutted by single-storey flat-roofed block (of no interest), exposed section has one window. Left cheek of wing is detailed as wing to east elevation but no windows are stained glass.

Setting

The church is situated on an elevated site in a tarmac parking lot separated from the road by a brick dwarf wall, square gate pillars.

There is an attached church hall complex of multi-bay single-height and double-height flat-roofed blocks linking church to the former church. (The Gothic-styled brick former church has a single-storey canted single-storey projection and four-centred arch-headed tracery windows. The former church is abutted by double-height church hall and single-height church hall return and linking block.

Roof: Red clay tiles
Walling: red brick
Windows: leaded textured clear glass
Rainwater goods: cast-iron

Historical information

The Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland congregational history (accessed online) states that the Presbyterian Church in Glengormley developed from ‘services organised and conducted by the Rev. Dr. John A. Bain and from a Sunday School started in the Old Tea Rooms at Glengormley in 1935, this congregation became a recognised charge in 1936. A church hall was declared open and dedicated in 1937, and in the following year the Rev. Samuel McKinley, formerly of Newmills, Co. Tyrone, was installed as the first minister’.

The foundation stone of a new church building was laid in 1955. It was designed by Anthony Frederick Lucy of Holywood, Co. Down and built by W. Dowling Ltd. for a cost of £35,000 (Irish Architectural Archive).

The Church was extended in 1971; this included a hall and a suite of rooms. In honour of Rev. McKinley the largest of the halls was named after him.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/56/1 –First Edition OS Map (1832)
2. PRONI OS/6/1/56/2 –Second Edition OS Map (1857)
3. PRONI OS/6/1/56/3 –Third Edition OS Map (1902)

Secondary Sources

1. Glengormley Presbyterian Church. [Internet Source].
Available from: (Accessed 23rd Nov, 2008).
2. Church Building in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland 1950-1962, pg.13.
3. Illustrated in "Irish Builder," (26/01/1957) pg. 57
4.Irish Architectural Archive. “Dictionary of Irish Architects” [Internet Source] Available from: Accessed 12/05/09.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A mid-twentieth-century brick church that occupies a prominent site and features a significant amount of modernist detailing. The austerity of the brick form is enlivened by the stylised windows and door. However, it not among the best examples of Lucy's work or of the Modernist idiom.