Hall (Former Church), Duneane Presbyterian Church, Gloverstown Road, Toomebridge, Co Antrim, BT41 3RB

Duneane Presbyterian Church, now used as a church hall, is a detached single-cell double-height former church of Grade B2 listing interest. Built in 1815 and located north of Church Road in a rural churchyard setting at Gloverstown Road, Toomebridge, the building retains simple gothic detailing and represents an important local Presbyterian place of worship.

The church is a rectangular single-storey structure with pitched natural slate roof, raised verges and chimneys to gable ends. The walls are roughcast over smooth rendered plinth with rendered banding to corners. A lean-to kitchen extension projects to the east, with a further extension to the north; a modern single-storey extension was added to the east around 2000. The principal south elevation is gable-ended with simple moulded kneeler stones and moulded cornice to eaves. This elevation is flanked by sandstone diagonal buttressing with offsets. The central entrance consists of a four-order rebated pointed-arched-headed doorway with hood moulding and label stops, set within stepped rendered surround. The door itself is diagonally sheeted timber with decorative straps, accessed by four rendered steps. The doorway is flanked on each side by a grouping of three small square-headed windows with gothic stained glass motif, set within V-channel rusticated surrounds with chamfered sills. Above the door is a tripartite gothic window with a larger central light. A narrow pointed-arched-headed louvred opening penetrates the apex.

The west elevation is seven windows wide, each bay divided by roughcast buttressing with offsets, and displays cavetto moulding to the eaves. All windows are pointed-arched-headed with smooth rendered surrounds and painted masonry sills, containing elegant leaded stained glass with margined lights and secondary external plain glazing. The north gable is smooth rendered with corbelled eaves and kneeler stones to the base and centre of the pitch. This elevation is flanked by diagonal buttressing with offsets and has a small pointed-arched-headed louvred opening with masonry sill at the apex. At the centre of the north elevation stands a single-storey minister's room with slated pitched roof and timber eaves board; this is abutted on the east by an extension with cat-slide roof and on the west by a later flat-roofed boiler house.

Rainwater goods are cast iron throughout. The plasterwork and timber detailing, both externally and internally, are well preserved. Extensions for use as a church hall have been carried out sympathetically, and the original character of the church has not been lost.

The church originally occupied 1 acre of land, valued at £6 1s 0d in 1836. The earliest grave marker in the graveyard is that of Henry Esler, dated 1815, the same year as the church's construction. The graveyard contains a monument to John Carey. According to the Ordnance Survey memoirs, the church was originally built of mud, later rebuilt in stone. When constructed in 1815 under Reverend Archabald, the congregation numbered 250 families and the church accommodated 360 people. The 1837 OS memoir described the original interior as having an earth floor except for two boarded double pews, an aisle six and a half feet wide, and ten oval-shaped windows, three feet wide, distributed as four on each side and one on each end, with two doors on the side or front. The current exterior does not correspond with this 1837 description, suggesting the church was remodelled and roughcast around 1880. It was remodelled again when the new church (built 1936) took over the congregation's worship, converting this building to a church hall.

The churchyard setting is enhanced by the graveyard to the east, west and north, and by the modern church building to the south. The site is bounded by hedge to the east, north and west, and by a brick stretcher-bonded wall with brick piers, banded pillar caps and two steel gates along the road frontage to the south. The building demonstrates local historical and cultural importance as a significant Presbyterian place of worship serving the community for over a century before its conversion to a hall.