Old Presbyterian Church, Main Street, Ballyclare, Co Antrim, BT39 0DG

Old Presbyterian Church, Main Street, Ballyclare

This is a detached single-storey, single-cell Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church, built around 1800, located to the east of Main Street. The church is rectangular on plan with porches to the north and south, and a two-storey hall extension to the south-east with its first floor at street level.

The building has pitched, slated roofs with clay ridge tiles, corbelled eaves, and timber bargeboards to the gable-ends. The walls are smooth rendered. Windows are pointed-arched-headed in plain reveals with masonry cills, containing timber-framed replacement windows with plain glass and Y-tracery. The principal elevation facing west is five windows wide.

The north elevation features a gable-ended porch containing a single stained glass window to the centre and a bell mounted on cast-iron brackets to the apex. Abutted to the north of the principal elevation is a porch containing a depressed pointed-arched-headed opening with double-leaf vertically timber-sheeted doors, cast iron handle and strap hinges. The south elevation is abutted by a flat-roofed porch with square-headed double-leaf vertically timber-sheeted doors flanked by a square-headed slit window containing leaded stained glass, accessed by three steps. The east elevation is five windows wide, abutted to the right by the north porch containing a single window, and abutted to the south by the flat-roofed two-storey extension and a single-storey lean-to boiler house. Rainwater goods are uPVC.

The church stands within a churchyard with a garden to the west, bounded to the street by recent brick walling surmounted by cast-iron railings and square pillars supporting wrought-iron double-leaf gates. To the east is a graveyard, cleared for landscaping, with gravestones moved to the south boundary rubble wall and bounded to the east by modern steel gates. A former session house stands to the north of the site with frontage to the street, a single-storey single-bay structure with an extension to the east, pitched and slated roof, roughcast walling, and replacement doors and windows.

The earliest Presbyterian congregation in Ballyclare was established in 1646 in a central location within the village. The original building was of stone construction with a thatched roof and an earthen floor with stone slabs beneath the aisles, built only on a base of stones with no proper foundations.

In 1800, the building was lengthened and galleries were constructed to three sides: north, south and west. The church is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833 and is recorded in the Townland Valuation of 1834, with measurements given as 65.0 feet in length, 28.0 feet in breadth, and 14.0 feet in height, valued at £11 3s 0d. The sermon house was recorded separately at a value of £1 3s 2d.

During the late seventeenth century, controversy arose as congregations split over the issue of subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith. Those who wished to remain subscribed broke away from the church in the early nineteenth century and formed another congregation, now Ballyclare Presbyterian Church. The old church remained part of the Non-Subscribers, forming part of the Remonstrant Synod in 1830 and combining with the Antrim Presbytery in 1910 to form the General Synod of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland.

The church was extensively reconstructed in 1901 to designs by architect James Ferguson of Belfast. During this work, the roof, windows, gallery, pulpit, seats and floors were removed. A new pitched pine roof and pews were installed, and a platform was constructed at the north end with a timber choir screen and pulpit. Porches were added to each end. The bell, which originally stood on the session house, was relocated to the north gable during the reconstruction work. The school room to the south was extended to include new facilities in 1985. This extension work revealed that the building's lack of foundations caused significant problems.

The session house, contemporary with the original meeting house, is now one of the oldest buildings in Ballyclare.