Historic Buildings Record · Northern Ireland
Site of former Comber Methodist Church
Town Parks, Ards and North Down, Northern Ireland
The record
- Designation
- Record only (not listed)
- Grade
- Record Only
- Type
- Demolished
- Date of construction
- 1820 - 1839
- Address
- Site of former Comber Methodist Church, Bridge Street, Comber, Co. Down
- Townland
- Town Parks
- Council
- Ards and North Down
- Country
- Northern Ireland
- Coordinates
- 54.55122, -5.74352
- Date of survey
- 06 July 1999
- HB reference
- HB24/15/016
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
Shown on 5 historical map sheets, the earliest the 1794 "Sheet 55. (Cary's England, Wales, and Scotland)." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).
The Department's description
Exterior description and setting
Site, on the N side of Bridge Street, of a former Methodist Church of 1820, demolished c.1996 with new church now built in its place.
The church was described in the first survey of November 1970 as a ‘Single storey church with lean to extension at back. Front porch. Building set back from street behind wrought iron railing on plinth wall. Roof slated with gable to street. Walls rendered, lined and painted. Gable has roundel in tympanum with quatrefoil inset with label moulding and with text inscription and “Methodist Mission Chapel 1820”. Gothic window on each side of the porch, two light with long panes, bevelled stone surround and label moulding. Gabled porch, a later austere addition, has central drop hung [sash] window, no astragals and sheeted entrance door on right hand side. Three windows on flank of building similar to those on front but without label moulding. Screen walls on each side of gable. Condition good. Front about 28ft.’
Nothing remains of the original building and a new modern church is been built on the site (but not in the same position).
Historical information
This church was built in 1820. It is shown, without the porch, on the OS map of 1834 and described in the OS memoirs of 1837 as ‘a plain stone building…capable of accommodating about 300’. The entrance porch appears to have been added in the early 1900s. The church was demolished in c.1996 and a new modern church built on the site, but not in the same position as the original.
References- Primary sources
1 PRONI OS/1/3/10 OS map, 1st ed. 1834, Down 10.
2 ‘Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II’, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB1991), p.28.
3 PRONI OS/6/3/10/3 OS map, 1st rev. 1858, Down 10.
4 PRONI OS/2/3/10 OS map, 2nd ed. 1901, Down 10.
Criteria for listing: architectural interest
Not listed
Criteria for listing: historic interest
Not listed
Evaluation
Site of former, relatively plain, single storey Methodist church of 1820, demolished c.1996 with new modern church built in its place.
Nearby in the register
- Site of former 34 Bridge StreetDemolishedunder 1 mi
- 25 Bridge StreetHouseunder 1 mi
- Site of former 36 Bridge StreetDemolishedunder 1 mi
- Site of former 43 Bridge StreetDemolishedunder 1 mi
Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.