Calvary Christian Centre

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached two and three-storey brick and rendered former place of worship, dated 1960. Square on plan facing south with a two-storey brick extension to the rear, built c.1980.

Flat concrete roof with overhanging eaves. Cast-iron guttering to the side elevations only. Grey brick walling laid in stretcher bond and cement render embedded with pebbles. Square-headed window openings with steel casement windows.

Asymmetrical front elevation articulated as two vertical sections framed by grey brick pilaster strips. Large five-light window to the right and further five-light window to the first floor stairhall. Further pair of square window openings to the right with projecting rendered surrounds. Mosaic tiled strip over the stairhall window and a flat canopy to the principal entrance below with further mosaic strip over the window.

West side elevation is three windows wide with an elevated section to the rear (housing the lift shaft).

Rear elevation abutted by two-storey brown brick extension.

East side elevation is five windows wide with a single large window opening to the ground floor.

Setting

Located on the north side of Curtis Street to the rear of University of Ulster. Short laneway to both side elevations with a small enclosed yard to the rear fronting onto Great Patrick Street.

Roof Not seen
RWG Cast-iron
Walling brick/render/infill panels
Windows steel

Historical information

The current building was constructed as the command HQ for the Salvation Army in Ireland to designs by Matthew Clarence Logan and is first shown on the OS map edition dating from the 1960s/70s. The foundation stone was laid on 3rd December 1960 by the then Minister of Finance, Terence O’Neill and a second foundation stone was laid by Commissioner Edgar Grinsted (Belfast Newsletter).

The building, which was expected to cost £25,000 was to house the Academy Street Corps and provide accommodation for the Army’s permanent officers. The architect, M C Logan, was active in Belfast over a long period, designing mission halls and housing for developers in the 1930s and working in partnership with W McK Davidson in the 1950s (ww.dia.ie)

William Booth, a breakaway Methodist preacher, dispatched Salvation Army soldiers to Belfast in 1880 fifteen years after the organisation had been founded in England. By 1908 numbers had increased to the extent that the Hippodrome in Great Victoria Street was taken over for use as a meeting hall. More permanent premises were found in the Dublin Road by the 1920s and these were rebuilt after bomb damage in the 1970s and again in 2000. The Curtis Street offices were vacated by the Salvation Army in recent years and subsequently taken over by the Calvary Christian Centre, a missionary organisation with roots in Singapore (www.calvarydublin.org). The building currently lies vacant.

References:

Primary Sources

1. OS Map 130 (1960s/70s)
2. Belfast Newsletter 5th December 1960

Secondary Sources

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

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Detached two and three-storey brick and rendered former place of worship, dated 1960. This is an interesting example of 1960s modernism on a small scale and demonstrating a common feature of the style in the varying wall panels. Although of some interest as a representative of mid-century Modern, it is not among the best examples of the type.