Martyrs Memorial Free Presbyterian Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Symmetrical free-standing double-height redbrick Presbyterian Church, dated 1969, built to the designs of Gordon McKnight. Rectangular on plan facing west with triple-height gabled entrance projection and located on the east side of Ravenhill Avenue on a corner site with Ardenlee Avenue to the south and Ravenhill Gardens to the north. Three-storey redbrick hall connected to the rear, built c.1997, named The Paisley Jubilee Complex.

Flat concrete metal-lined roof with set-back concrete clerestorey with arched window openings and lead-lined concrete spouts. Steel box hoppers and box guttering. Redbrick walling laid in stretcher bond with splayed redbrick plinth to the main body. Segmental-headed window openings with fixed-pane steel windows.

Symmetrical front elevation abutted by flat-roofed vestibule and triple-height gabled front projection. Pitched roof to gabled projection with stepped concrete verge. Cast concrete rose window with applied metal clock face above and bronze lettering below stating; 'Martyrs Memorial Free Presbyterian Church'. To the ground floor are three segmental-headed double-height arched openings forming a prostyle tetrastyle portico with terrazzo stepped platform. To either side of the portico at ground floor level are a series of seven slender loophole style openings with steel windows and steel sills. To both cheeks of the vestibule is a series of forty-two slender window openings, detailed as per above, lighting the stairhalls. Within the portico is a full-height hardwood-framed glazed screen housing three square-headed door openings with deep hardwood architrave surrounds and double-leaf bronze doors with raised lettering quoted from christian texts.

The double-height north side elevation has eleven segmental-headed window openings at ground level, detailed as per above.

Rear elevation has a recessed triple-height gable, as per front elevation, also having cast concrete rose window and abutted by a two-storey flat-roof wing connecting the church to the later hall. The remainder of this elevation has a series of triangular projections, three to either side of the gable and a single segmental-headed door opening to either side.

South side elevation as per north side elevation.

Setting;
Located on the east side of Ravenhill Road on a site between Ravenhill Gardens to the north and Ardenlee Avenue to the south. Front doors open onto terrazzo platform into cobblelock front area enclosed on three sides by geometric steel railings and gates on low redbrick plinth wall and piers.

Roof Flat concrete
RWG Steel
Walling Redbrick
Windows Original steel

Historical information

The foundation stones of the Martyr’s Memorial Free Presbyterian Church were laid on 14thOctober 1967 and the church opened on 4th October 1969. The architect was Gordon McKnight and the contractors McCarroll and Steenson of Belfast. (Datestones)

Martyr’s Memorial Free Presbyterian Church is inextricably linked with the personality of the founder of the Church, the Rev. Dr Ian Paisley, and as such attracted considerable press interest, both within Ireland and beyond, when it opened on 4th October 1969. The Ravenhill Road site, formerly occupied by a nursing home, is close to the former home of another very significant, and also somewhat controversial, figure in the history of Irish Presbyterianism, Dr Henry Cooke, who is commemorated by a church not far away on the Ormeau Road. Martyr’s Memorial is said to have cost £180,000, the equivalent of nearly two million pounds today. According to Rev Paisley, all the money for the church came from free subscription and £120,000 had already been paid by the time the church opened. The church is first shown on the OS map edition dating from the 1960s/70s and enters valuation records in 1970 as a ‘Church, Hall, caretaker’s house and grounds’ with buildings valued at £2,400. (Second General Revaluation)

Much was made in press reports of the high cost of the church and the fact that it was centrally-heated and carpeted. A plaque states that the church was built by the Ravenhill congregation under the ministry of Dr Ian K Paisley in recognition of his evangelistic labours and defence of the faith. The three bronze double doors bear carved texts, one from the Old Testament, one form the new and in the centre the 14 theses of Martin Luther which gave rise to the Reformation. The pulpit has been arranged so that in Rev Paisley’s words, ‘no one in the lower gallery would be more than 50 ft away from him and no one in the upper gallery more than 70 ft away.’ The church was fitted with lightwood pews and around the walls are likenesses of 30 protestant martyrs beginning with Luther, Calvin and John Knox and including a young Belgian missionary who was murdered in the Congo. (The Times, October 4th 1969) It was claimed at the time to be the biggest Protestant church opened in the United Kingdom since the turn of the century, and was opened in a ceremony which attracted 6,000 people, some of whom viewed the service via closed circuit television. The church was built to seat 2,000 and took two years to construct. The site was purchased from the Bates family, Sir Dawson Bates having been the first Minister of Home Affairs in Northern Ireland. (Irish Times, October 4th and 6th 1969)

The architect, Gordon McKnight, began his career as a church architect in 1955-7 with Orangefield Presbyterian church and was the designer of over 30 churches for protestant denominations over the course of four decades, including St Andrews and Knockbreda Church (1971), Belfast and Albertbridge Road Congregational Church (1985-6). His ‘blend of tradition and modernity, often wrought in romantic vein’ made him a popular choice. (Evans et al)

The Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster came into being in the spring of 1951, after the Down Presbytery had refused permission for Paisley, then 26 years old, to conduct an evangelical campaign in Lissara church hall at Crossgar. The son of a Baptist pastor, Paisley felt the call to preach while working on local farms in Ballymena. He then completed a three-year diploma in the Theological Hall of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland and further study at a bible college in Wales, following which he began to preach at an Evangelical Mission Church at Ravenhill, to a congregation that had seceded from the Presbyterian church in the 1930s. Paisley was ordained in this church in the late 1946 and after the Lissara dispute, he was joined by a number of elders and members of the Crossgar church and conducted an evangelical campaign in a neighbouring mission hall, forming the first congregation of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. A month later, Paisley’s own church in Ravenhill joined, followed by a third congregation at Cabra, County Antrim and by the time of the 1961 census, 1,093 people gave Free Presbyterian as their denomination. Several new churches were added in the fifties, some of which were built following successful tent meetings held by Paisley. (Irish Times 6th December 1971)

By early 1969 there were 12 free Presbyterian churches in Northern Ireland, largely small buildings of the mission hall type. Before the opening of Martyr’s Memorial, Paisley’s Sunday services were preached in the Ulster Hall which was usually filled to capacity and it was estimated that by the late 1960s, when Paisley had begun to move into the political sphere, that he had about 200,000 supporters. (Times Wednesday January 29th 1969)

Primary Sources

1. OS Map 147 1960s/70s
2. PRONI VAL/4/B/7/24 – Second General Revaluation 1956-72
3. The Times 29th January 1969
4. The Times 4th October 1969
5. Irish Times 4th October 1969
6. Irish Times 6th October 1969
7. Irish Times 6th December 1971

Secondary Sources

1. Evans, D; Hackett, M; Hall, A; Larmour, P; Rattray C “Modern Ulster Architecture” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 2006

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
R. Age
S. Authenticity

Evaluation

Symmetrical free-standing redbrick Free Presbyterian Church, dated 1969, built to the designs of local architect Gordon McKnight. Rectangular on plan facing west with triple-height gabled entrance projection and located on the east side of Ravenhill Avenue on a corner site with Ardenlee Avenue to the south and Ravenhill Gardens to the north. A large and well proportioned, mid-twentieth-century church, which retains much of its fine internal and external detailing and has close associations to Rev. Ian Paisley, the founder of the Free Presbyterian Church in Ireland. The building has social interest for the local community.