Berry Street Presbyterian Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A gabled brick-fronted double-height Presbyterian Church built 1859 and located to the south side of Berry Street in Belfast city centre. Rectangular on plan with modern single-storey extensions to east and west (of no interest).

Pitched natural slate roof with raised masonry verges having dog-tooth and corbelled brick corniced to principal gable. Plastic rainwater goods on smooth rendered eaves band. Walling is English garden wall-bonded red-brick, painted to north elevation with dentilled brick course under eaves and decorative painted carved stone plaques; lower half of south elevation is painted smooth render; painted roughcast render to east and west elevations. Windows are round-headed replacement multi-paned timber casements with projecting painted masonry sills (unless otherwise stated); three staged windows to north with brick voussoirs and relieving arch over; continuous sill with corbels under.

North-facing gabled front is simply detailed framed by piers, with three staged windows over entrance door to ground floor centre, flanked by round-headed chamfered niches containing timber notice boards with round-headed hoods and resting on painted masonry corbels. Double-leaf timber-sheeted entrance doors are set into a chamfered brick reveal and surmounted by a fixed timber-sheeted tympanum.

The east elevation is abutted at left by the lean-to extension; four windows at gallery level over two windows at ground floor and a set of double-leaf timber doors with glazed panels and round-headed fixed timber tympanum over.

The south gable has two round-headed leaded-and-stained glass windows.

The west elevation is partially concealed; three windows visible at gallery level; abutted at ground floor by the modern extension.

Setting:
Situated in the heart of commercial Belfast City Centre, facing the rear entrance of Castlecourt Shopping Centre and at the east end of pedestrianised Berry Street. The area is characterized by an incoherent mix of post-war architecture, with plain two-storey red-brick commercial units lining Chapel lane to east. To southeast is St Mary’s Church and to rear is a brick pavior courtyard in use as a parking area.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Red-brick and roughcast render
Windows: Replacement multi-paned timber casements
RWG: Plastic

Historical information

The present Berry Street Presbyterian church dates from 1857-9 but there has been a Presbyterian meeting house on Berry Street since 1782. The congregations worshipping in Berry Street have come and gone, and the present one is the fourth to have occupied the building, which was constructed by a previous congregation (Patton). The church is first shown on the third edition OS map of 1858.

The roots of the Berry Street church go back to the first Secession (Anti-Burgher) congregation in Belfast of 1769. The congregation had a wide district and worshipped in a house near the Old Lodge Road for some years. In 1782 their minister William Carmichael built a meeting house in Berry Street, known as the First Seceding Meeting House, which remained in use until a new church was erected in Linenhall Street and the Berry Street building was sold to a Synod of Ulster committee led by Dr Henry Cooke for the purposes of church extension (History of Congregations). Between about 1842 and 1847 a congregation worshipped here led by minister William Johnston, later moderator of the General Assembly, and the building is recorded as the seventh Presbyterian church of Belfast in Street Directories, but this congregation is, very unusually, not detailed in the Presbyterian History of Congregations. William Johnston left for Townsend Street congregation in 1847 and the congregation moved to College Square North. A third congregation, gathered by a young licentiate, Hugh Hanna, in buildings in Donegall Street, took over the vacated church in 1852 and it was Hugh Hanna who rebuilt and enlarged the present church in 1857-9 (Patton). However, even this rebuilding was insufficient following the revival of 1859 and the burgeoning congregation, renamed St Enoch’s, removed to a larger building at Carlisle Circus in 1872 (History of Congregations).

The congregation now at Berry Street is the fourth to have worshipped there and was originally gathered in a church in Academy Street as part of work undertaken by the Town Mission in 1869. In 1876 they moved into the church that had been vacated by Hugh Hanna and his congregation (History of Congregations). A heating chamber was added to designs by James Scott in 1928 and pulpit, choirbox and pews were removed in 1968 (Patton; www.dia.ie). The congregation has dwindled to less than twenty families in recent years and shares a minister with Richview (Kirkpatrick).

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1858
2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1901-2
3. PRONI OS/6/1/61/6 – Sixth Edition OS Map 1931
4. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/C/18 Annual Revisions 1909
5. PRONI VAL/12/A/7/L/47 Valuer’s Notes 1909
6. Street Directories (1908-95)

Secondary Sources

1. “A History of Congregations in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland 1610-1982” authorised by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Belfast: Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland, 1982 (available at www.presbyterianhistoryireland.com)
2. Kirkpatrick, L “Presbyterians in Ireland” Booklink, 2006
3. Patton, M “Central Belfast: An Historical Gazetteer” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993
4. www.dia.ie – Dictionary of Irish Architects online

Evaluation

A gabled brick-fronted double-height Presbyterian Church built c.1860 and located to the south side of Berry Street in Belfast city centre. Simply detailed the church is an important survivor in an area that has been significantly degraded through post-war redevelopment. Berry Street Presbyterian Church has an important social history and is of significant local interest.