Fortwilliam & Macrory Presbyterian Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Free-standing double-height over basement gable-fronted Gothic Revival sandstone church, built c.1885, to the designs of Henry Chappell. T-shaped on plan facing west abutted to the rear by a three-storey reconstituted stone wing, built c.1954. Located on its own site fronting onto Antrim Road with its south nave fronting onto Alexandra Gardens.

Steeply pitched natural slate roof with roll-moulded terracotta ridge tiles and set behind slightly raised east and west gables having roll-moulded coping and stone finials. Replacement moulded steel guttering supported on moulded red sandstone eaves course and mixture of plastic and cast-iron downpipes. Coursed rock-faced sandstone ashlar walling with red sandstone ashlar plinth trims, flush red sandstone courses and red sandstone string and sill courses. Sandstone buttresses separate each bay to the nave, surmounted by gableted pinnacles rising above eaves level. Pointed-arched window openings flanked by red sandstone colonettes with stone tracery, decorative red sandstone panels (corresponding to the gallery level), latticed leaded and stained glass windows with storm glazing.

Square-plan three-stage tower with tapered octagonal plan sandstone ashlar spire having crocketed top and wrought-iron finial. Lucarnes to the lower half with stiff-leaf capitals and colonettes missing. Clasping buttresses rise above the upper stage as four octagonal and tapered pinnacles surmounted by crocketed stone finials. The upper stage is an open belfry with a pair of pointed-arched apertures to all elevations rising from a blind arcade. The ground floor stage has a single pointed-arched window opening to the south and west elevations (detailed as per nave windows). To the south elevation, at basement level is a shouldered square-headed door opening with double-leaf sheeted timber doors set in a pointed-arched doorcase having splayed jambs and stiff-leaf impost stones with compound moulded sandstone arch and decorative roundel set within the tympanum.

Gabled front elevation has a large pointed arch with compound arch mouldings rising from paired red sandstone colonettes and incorporating a tripartite entrance. The upper part of the arch is filled with a geometric tracery window over three pairs of lancets and flanked by full-height buttresses with hooded niches and rising as tapered finials breaking through the gable. The tripartite entrance comprises three compound moulded arches over three shouldered square-headed door openings with three replacement double-leaf timber paneled doors divided by clustered red sandstone colonettes with stiff-leaf capitals. The arches have decorative foliate stone tympana while the doorcases are topped by crocketed gables. The doors open onto a stone paved platform and ten stone steps enclosed by an arcaded stone balustrade (also enclosing the basement area) terminated by square gableted piers supporting decorative cast-iron lamp standards. To either side are lancet windows in turn flanked by buttresses surmounted by gablets.

North nave elevation is five windows wide with a canted projecting bay to the west end. Paired lancets with leaded glazing to basement level.

Gabled east elevation is abutted by a multi-planar three-storey gabled extension, built c.1954, with rock-faced reconstituted stone walling, a sandstone Catherine wheel east window (with stained glass) and leaded steel casement windows set in transom and mullioned frames.

South nave elevation is five windows wide, detailed as above.

Roof : Natural slate
RWG : Replacement steel / plastic
Walling : Scrabo sandstone with Corsehill sandstone dressings
Windows: Leaded stained glass

Setting
Facing west onto Antrim Road with its south nave elevation fronting onto Alexandra Gardens. Encircled to the west, south and east by bitmac areas enclosed to the street by rubble basalt walling with stacked coping and replacement iron gates. The rear extension has an arcaded passageway connecting to a redbrick two-storey presbytery to the northeast.

Historical information

Fortwilliam Park Presbyterian Church, a Gothic Revival sandstone Church located at the corner of the Antrim Road and Fortwilliam Park, was constructed in 1884-85.

Following the development of the Antrim Road in 1830, a number of gentlemen’s mansions and wealthy merchant’s houses were constructed in the townland of Skegoneill which became one of the most affluent areas in the city of Belfast. In his history of Fortwilliam Park Presbyterian Church, Long states that the Presbytery raised the funds for the construction of the church from the prominent and wealthy residents of the area. The current plot of land was purchased from the Fortwilliam estate in 1879 but it would be six years before the new church was completed.

Fortwilliam Park Presbyterian Church was designed by Henry Chappell (c. 1832-1924), an architect and engineer from Newtownards who carried out a number of ecclesiastical commissions throughout Ulster (of which Fortwilliam Presbyterian was the most accomplished). The Presbytery commissioned Chappell to design a church that could accommodate 800 and would provide a schoolroom. The builder contracted to construct the church was James Henry from the Crumlin Road who submitted a tender of £6,200. The Natural Stone Database records that the building was constructed of locally-quarried Scrabo sandstone with Corsehill sandstone employed as a secondary material. The foundation stone of the church was laid on 1st January 1884 (DIA; NSD).

At the laying ceremony the Moderator of the General Assembly praised the siting and style of the church: ‘I heartily congratulate you on the site you have chosen and on the style of the structure which you are raising. The site is a splendid one, one of the best in the suburbs of Belfast. The surroundings are all that need be desired and I confidently expect that the building, in beauty and graceful proportions will be worthy of the position it occupies … I rejoice that you are setting so good an example of the advance that is taking place in church architecture in our day. It is high time that the Presbyterian Church in Ireland should provide churches of a better class for her congregations in which to worship. In this it becomes us to move with the age’ (Long).

The church was completed in April 1885. The building had been designed as a two-storey structure with the ground floor occupied by a schoolroom or lecture hall (that could accommodate 500) whilst the church hall was located on the storey above. Due to its elevated position and tall tower and spire, at the time of its competition Fortwilliam Park Presbyterian Church possessed the tallest spire in the city and could be viewed for miles. The church was officially opened on Sunday 26th April 1885 and was valued at £180 by the Annual Revisions. The Irish Builder records that the circular rose window facing onto the Antrim Road had been installed by Heaton, Butler & Bayne by 1885 (Irish Builder, pp 128-129).

The two stained glass windows within the church were erected in memory of Robert Porter and Henry Matier, prominent members of the congregation who had been instrumental in acquiring the current site of the church in 1879. The windows were installed sometime after their deaths in 1887 and 1891 (respectively) and were designed by O. C. Hawkes of Bromsgrove Street, Birmingham. When completed the church did not possess an organ. In 1902 an American harmonium was installed but this was replaced in 1927 by a new pipe organ which cost £2,176. A memorial dedicated to members of the congregation who had died in the First World War was installed in the church vestibule following the conflict. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57) the value of Fortwilliam Park Presbyterian Church was set at £300. During the Second World War Fortwilliam Park Presbyterian Church received minor structural damage as a result of the Belfast Blitz. In order to prevent further damage the stained glass windows were removed. With the end of the war a second memorial was dedicated to those who had died from the congregation (Long).

Following the Second World War the size of the congregation greatly increased to the extent that the church could no longer accommodate it. Between the 1940s and 1954 a number of houses in the Fortwilliam area were acquired by the church and utilised for additional church services. In 1954-56 the east end of the church was extended to designs by John MacGeagh (1901-1985), a Belfast-based architect who carried out a large number of domestic and ecclesiastical contracts in the city throughout the mid-20th century. The extension of the building was completed in 1956 and cost £30,000. As part of the extension of the building the church organ was removed and upgraded. Long states that the new organ possessed 61 stops and 1,438 pipes ‘making it one of the finest of its kind in any church.’ By 1962 the church spire was found to be in need of immediate restoration (estimated at £4,000) and in the early 1970s the church underwent an extensive renovation that included the repair of the spire, the reroofing of the building, the overhaul of the church organ and the restoration of the exterior stonework’ (Long). By the end of the Second Revaluation (1956-72) the rateable value of the church had been further increased to £1,460.

Fortwilliam Park Presbyterian Church was listed in 1988 and was included in the Somerton Road Conservation Area in 2000. A further restoration was undertaken in 2009 when a new church organ was also installed. Kirkpatrick states that the current membership of the church stands at around 150 families (Kirkpatrick, p. 146).

Resources

Primary Sources
1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1858)
2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1901-02)
3. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1931)
4. PRONI OS/6/1/61/5 – Fifth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1938)
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/5/8A-F – Annual Revisions (1862-1897)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/H/1-7 – Annual Revisions (1897-1930)
7. PRONI VAL/3/C/3/12- First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-72)
8. PRONI VAL/4/B/7/16 - Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956-72)
9. Irish Builder (1 May 1885)
10. Ulster Town Directories (1861-1943)
11. First Survey Record – HB26/46/014 (1985)
12. NIEA HB Records – HB26/46/014

Secondary Sources
1. Baillie, W. D., ‘A history of congregations in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland: 1610-1982’ Belfast: Presbyterian Historical Society, 1982.
2. Kirkpatrick, L., ‘Presbyterians in Ireland: An illustrated history’ Booklink, 2006.
3. Larmour, P., ‘Belfast: An illustrated architectural guide’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1987.
4. Long, T. J., ‘A short history of Fortwilliam Park Presbyterian Church: 1885-1985’ Belfast: Fortwilliam Park Presbyterian Church, 1985.

Online Resources
1. Dictionary of Irish Architects - http://www.dia.ie
2. Natural Stone Database - http://www.stonedatabase.com/
3. Fortwilliam Park Presbyterian Church - http://www.fmpci.com/history-of-fortwilliam-park

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

Sandstone church, over basement , built c.1885, to the designs of Henry Chappell who was both an architect and an engineer who completed many ecclesiastical buildings; Fortwilliam Presbryterian is reported to be his most accomplished. At the laying ceremony, the Moderator of the General Assembly stated 'It is high time that the Presbyterian Church in Ireland should provide churches of a better class for her congregations in which to worship'. An imposing church executed in the Gothic Revival style and holding a prominent location at the junction of two busy roads. The basement, or lower ground floor, was built as a schoolroom whilst the upper volume was intended as a church. T-shaped on plan, facing west and abutted to the rear by a three-storey reconstituted stone wing, built c.1954 to designs by John MacGeagh. This later rear extension detracts from the overall composition on what was hitherto a simple layout. Nonetheless, the elegant tower and spire, dramatic interior and the overall vertical emphasis make this a local landmark and an important part of the built heritage of the Fortwilliam area. Chappell's engineering backround is evident in the overall composition which is robust yet elegant. The tripartite entrance opens onto wide stone steps with an arcaded ballustrade that terminates in square gableted pillars supporting decorative cast-iron lamp standards. This elevated platform is flanked by arcaded stone ballustrades that enclose the basement each side and span the full width of the Church giving it an impressive appearance.

General comments

Listing Criteria R - Age; and S - Authenticity also apply