Shaftesbury Square Reformed Presbyterian Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Free-standing double-height gable-fronted gothic redbrick and stone church, built c.1890, to the designs of Samuel Stephenson. Rectangular on plan facing west and located on the east side of Dublin Road with a small railed area to front and side elevations and two-storey redbrick ancillary block to rear.

Pitched natural slate roof with terracotta ridgecomb tiles, ogee-moulded cast-iron guttering to sandstone ashlar eaves course and metal downpipes. Roof set behind front gable with sandstone coping surmounted by stone finial. Redbrick walling laid in English garden wall bond with rock-faced sandstone ashlar plinth course and moulded trim. Pointed-headed lancet window openings formed in moulded redbrick surrounds with continuous flush sandstone impost course, flush splayed sandstone sills and continuous flush sill course and leaded coloured glazing.

Double-height gabled front elevation flanked by pair of octagonal piers on angled buttress bases supporting decorative corbelled out and panelled sandstone sections to the centre and surmounted by decorative panelled sandstone drums and tapered capstones. Tripartite arrangement of pointed-arched window openings to the upper level with deep moulded sandstone surrounds, continuous hood moulding and foliate label stops resting on splayed sill and weathered sandstone course spanning entire gable. Cusped stone Y-tracery houses leaded coloured fixed glazing. Flanking the gable is a lower single-bay square-plan tower with angle buttresses, surmounted by a blind arcaded redbrick parpapet wall and sandstone coping with a single pointed-arched window opening to the front elevation, detailed as per above. Pair of pointed-arched door openings with deep voussoired compound moulded sandstone arches, housing square-headed door openings with blind sandstone overpanels, splayed sandstone reveals, continuous impost mouldings and woodgrained timber doors each having nine flat panels with bolection mouldings. Doors opening onto sandstone platform and five sandstone steps flanked by low walls.

North nave elevation has four groups of three lancet openings flanked by three-quarter height buttresses with sandstone offsets. The north side elevation to the flanking tower has a pair of pointed-arched lancets and roundel above set in chamfered sandstone with hood mouldings. To the east end is a further gabled elevation to the ancillary block with a series of five pointed-arched window openings with continuous redbrick hood moulding, continuous flush splayed sill and series of four square-headed window openings to the ground floor with sandstone lintels and sills, and timber mullioned windows.

Rear gabled elevation abutted by two-storey redbrick ancillary building with pitched natural slate roof behind north raised gable with sandstone coping in turn abutted by a slender entrance bay with egg-and-dart dentilated eaves cornice, and single window and door opening detailed as per gable and opening onto three stone steps.

South nave elevation detailed as per north elevation.

Setting;
Located on the east side of Dublin Road with small front and side paved areas enclosed by redbrick wall with chamfered stone coping and decorative iron railings. Matching gates to the front supported on redbrick and stone piers while a further pair of gates supported on cast-iron posts to the north side entrance of the ancillary block.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Cast-iron
Walling Redbrick
Windows Leaded coloured glass

Historical information

The Reformed Presbyterian Church, Dublin Road was built between 1889 and 1890 to designs by Samuel Stevenson. (Irish Builder)

The Reformed Presbyterian church in Ireland originated from a dispute around the Revolution settlement of 1690. A minority of Ulster Presbyterians objected to the settlement as disregarding earlier covenants with the English parliament ‘to work for the reformation of religion in the three kingdoms’ and the absence of recognition of the kingship of Christ. The ‘Covenanters’ as they came to be known stood apart from the Presbyterian church and began to hold separate meetings. Until 1757 they were dependent on the visits of ministers from Scotland but in 1763 a Reformed Presbytery was formed and in 1811 a Synod. Today there are 37 congregations, the vast majority in Northern Ireland, following the settlement patterns of the original Scots plantations in Antrim, Londonderry and Down. (www.rpc.org)

The population of Belfast grew rapidly during the second half of the nineteenth century, and by the late 1880s it was proving difficult to seat everyone who came to worship in the existing Reformed Presbyterian Church building at College Street South (later Grosvenor Road). In June 1888 it was decided to establish a second congregation in Belfast, and the new Dublin Road congregation came officially into existence on 28 December 1888. The Grosvenor Road congregation amalgamated with the Dublin Road one in 1978 under the new name 'Shaftesbury Square' following the destruction of the Grosvenor Road church building by a bomb six years earlier.

For just over a year the new congregation worshipped in the Central Hall, Rosemary Street pending the completion of its new building at Dublin Road The memorial stone of the new church was laid on Saturday September 14th 1889 and was reported in the Belfast Newsletter. The church was to be of Ormeau perforated brick with dressings from the Glebe quarry at Scrabo and the style of architecture, Early Gothic. It was to comprise a church with gallery and a large lecturing hall at the rere, committee rooms, a minister’s room and a caretaker’s room. The fittings and pews were to be of pitch pine, highly-varnished, with a platform of pitch pine and French-polished mahogany. A dado of pitch pine was to run all round the church and ventilation and heating were attended to with ventilators in the ceiling and a ‘hot-water apparatus’ for heating. The windows were to be filled with cathedral glass. The church was to seat 500 persons and the contractors were H & J Martin. “Both in the design and the structure of the building everything is being done with a view to the greatest comfort and convenience of the worshippers, and there can be little doubt that the building, when finished, will be one of the finest and most complete in the city.’ (Belfast Newsletter) The church opened on 13th March 1890, and like other convenanter churches has no organ.

The church is first shown, uncaptioned, on the fourth edition OS map of 1901-2 and enters valuation records in 1890 at a valuation of £120.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/1 – First Edition OS Map 1832-3
2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1901-2
4. PRONI OS/6/1/61/6 – Sixth Edition OS Map 1931
5. PRONI VAL/12B/43/A/1-45 Annual Revisions (1863-1930)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/P/1-8 – Annual Revisions (1897-1930)
7. Belfast Newsletter, 14th September 1889

Secondary Sources

1. Patton, M “Central Belfast: An Historical Gazetteer” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993
2. www.rpc.org

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

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

Evaluation

Double-height gable-fronted Gothic Revival redbrick and stone church with attached hall to rear, built c.1890, to the designs of Samuel Stephenson. Rectangular on plan facing west and located on the east side of Dublin Road. A fine example of a Gothic Revival church, with most of its original external fabric and impressive interior intact. It is well proportioned and detailed and has social interest for the local community. It remains one of the few remnants of the nineteenth-century urban fabric of Dublin Road and stands out as one of the most impressive buildings in this area of the city.