First Presbyterian Church, 80 Church Street, Antrim, BT41 4BA

First Presbyterian Church, 80 Church Street, Antrim, is an early 19th-century place of worship built between 1834 and 1837 to designs prepared in 1833 by John Millar, architect of Belfast. The foundation stone was laid on 9 June 1834, and the church opened on 18 June 1837. It is an impressive and largely unspoiled example of the Greek Revival style, notable for an unusual interpretation of the Doric order, and stands in its own grounds set well back from Church Street.

ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER AND EXTERIOR

The building is a gabled rectangular church in the Greek Revival style, its main entrance facing north and featuring a recessed portico. The walls are of smooth cement render, lined and painted, and partly lined and blocked, with rusticated quoins at the corners, a slightly projecting plinth, and a slightly projecting deep frieze.

The north elevation presents three bays beneath a triangular pediment, which is inscribed with the date 1834 in raised letters. The central entrance bay is recessed to form a porch with a segmental vaulted ceiling. The vault is carried on moulded segmental arches, each supported at its ends by longitudinally arranged Doric entablatures consisting of a moulded cornice — which returns across the rear wall — a triglyph frieze, and a plain architrave. These entablatures rest on a pair of Doric columns in antis, with responding Doric pilasters to each side and to the rear wall of the porch. The columns are notably unfluted along most of their length, with fluting confined to a narrow band at the top and another at the bottom — a deliberate and archaeologically informed choice discussed further below.

The central entrance doorway has a moulded lugged surround with a square head and inclined jambs. It contains a pair of rectangular timber panelled doors with horizontally sliding action, set in a timber frame with a leaded glazed fanlight above. The doors are approached by three concrete steps rising from the porch floor, which is itself reached by a flight of five granite steps; both flights are fitted with modern metal handrails. Each inner wall of the recessed porch contains a deeply recessed rectangular doorway with a pair of rectangular timber panelled doors. The outer bays of the north elevation each contain a group of three narrow semi-circular headed openings at high level, fitted with metal-framed four-pane windows filled with leaded glazing.

The east elevation is two storeys high, comprising a five-bay main wall to the south and a slightly projecting single bay to the north. The walling is smooth cement rendered, lined and blocked, with a slightly projecting plinth and frieze. Windows are set within double-storey semi-circular arched recesses rising from the plinth, with projecting granite cills. The upper windows are semi-circular headed; the lower windows are rectangular and contain decorative leaded glazing, with one window containing stained glass. All windows have storm-proof outer glazing. Within the plinth, where the ground slopes down to the south to accommodate a basement hall, there are three segmental arched openings: the left-hand window is an arched timber sliding sash of eight over eight panes with margin lights and without horns; the second from the left is a modern arched timber fixed light with a top-hung bottom light and plastic glazing bars; and the right-hand window is a similar frame fitted with wired glass. The projecting northern bay has at ground floor level a moulded granite cornice and a segmental-arched window set in a similarly arched recess containing a leaded decorative window. At first floor level it has a group of five narrow semi-circular headed openings within a rectangular granite panel, surmounted by a raised semi-circular tympanum that breaks into the frieze. Cast iron gutters and downpipes serve the main recessed block.

The rear elevation has a pedimented gable with a lower central gabled projection, from which a further lower circular bay projects, roofed with a semi-dome that appears to be dressed with lead. The walling is smooth cement rendered, lined and blocked, with a slightly projecting plinth and slightly projecting vertical strips at each extremity of the main gable. The main gable has a granite coping. A cast iron gutter runs across the gabled projection. Five openings at plinth level serve the basement area: two doorways and three windows. The windows are modern rectangular timber, with top-hung and fixed lights; the doors are modern glazed timber.

The west elevation is similar to the east, except that the plinth contains four small openings: modern arched timber windows and a pair of modern arched timber louvred doors.

STYLISTIC SIGNIFICANCE

The Doric order used throughout the church is architecturally unusual. John Millar consciously modelled his portico columns on partially worked antique Greek examples — specifically those of the Temple of Apollo at Delos and the Portico of Thoricus in Attica — in which the column shafts were fluted only in narrow bands at the top and the bottom, as if left unfinished by their original builders. Millar employed the same column type in his Presbyterian church at Portaferry, making this a distinctive and recurring element of his Greek Revival practice.

HISTORY AND ORIGINAL CONSTRUCTION

The commission was driven by the Reverend Robert Magill, the minister responsible for the building's erection, who died in 1839. The total cost of the original building was £3,000. As originally constructed, the exterior walls were of exposed whinstone, with the portico columns built of white porphyry. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1838 described the interior walls as "stone finished." The original pulpit was reached from the basement by a concealed spiral stair, and a Sunday school room originally occupied the space beneath the southern end of the church.

The building was damaged by fire in 1860 and subsequently rebuilt. In 1903 the interior was refitted to designs by W. D. R. Taggart, architect of Belfast.

SETTING

The church stands in its own grounds, set well back from Church Street but clearly visible from the road along an approach driveway. To the front of the church is an area of modern paving laid in a circular pattern; to the rear is a tarmac car park. On either side of the building, beyond its surrounding tarmac driveway, are lawned areas containing graves, though no memorials of any special architectural interest are present. The churchyard is enclosed on all sides by a rubble stone wall; similar walling lines the approach driveway, except at the north end of the east side, where a low rustic brick wall runs alongside a modern church extension. A gabled roughcast caretaker's house stands between the hall and the church. The driveway is bordered by pavements lined with shaped trees and antique-style lamp posts.