Former Presbyterian Church, 3 and 5 High Street, Antrim, BT41 4AX

This is a good example of a mid-19th-century Gothic Revival church, designed by Robert Young, architect of Belfast, for the 2nd Antrim Presbyterian congregation. Built in 1852, it was Young's first independent commission. Despite its conversion to offices and shops, and internal alterations, the exterior retains its fine architectural character.

The building is a gabled stone structure of rectangular plan with a projecting gabled frontispiece, with two main entrances facing north. The north elevation comprises a 3-bay gable with a prominent central gabled projection containing a large traceried window. Twin entrances occupy the recessed outer bays, each consisting of a 2-arched doorway with arched timber boarded doors set in moulded surrounds with crocketed ogee-arched hood mouldings, each surmounted by a large crocketed finial. The walls are of snecked rock-faced blackstone with sandstone dressings and a projecting moulded plinth. The projecting front bay has angle buttresses rising to tall gabled and crocketed pinnacles. A large 3-light, 2-centre arched timber window with cusped tracery in the head occupies the lower part of the gable, with lower portions of plate glass and upper portions of decorative leaded glazing. Above it is a narrow Gothic lancet containing timber louvers, with a moulded projecting stringcourse raking up parallel with the gabled parapet, which is pierced with a circular motif.

The east elevation is a 2-storey, 4-bay side wall of random rubble basalt with red brick block dressings to windows. The roof is of Bangor blue slates in regular courses with moulded eaves course. A 2-tier buttress of basalt rubble with sandstone weatherings stands between the second and third windows from the left. Upper windows are tall Gothic arched lancets containing plate glass. Lower windows are segmental arched with openings now blocked by smooth cement render.

The rear elevation is of basalt rubble with two-stage buttresses to each extremity; sandstone weatherings are present to the top tier of buttresses, but the lower tier has modern concrete blockwork weatherings. Windows have brick block dressings. A small lancet to the apex contains a pierced timber ventilator panel. Two lancets to the main floor are glazed as on the west elevation but are damaged, with smooth cement rendered reveals. Two windows to basement level are set in triangular headed arches with openings partly blocked by cement render; modern timber fixed lights with top-hung vents are in poor condition. Two basement doorways are rectangular timber, sheeted in metal, set in smooth rendered surrounds.

The west elevation is similar to the east, except that the tall lancets are glazed with original decorative leaded lights of circa 1900. Cast iron gutter and downpipe are present.

The building stands facing the main street, set back from it with a modern concrete brick paved area in front, bounded to the east by plain metal railings and to the west by a low modern concrete brickwork wall. Two modern single-storey kiosks of concrete brickwork with flat roofs and PVC rainwater goods stand at the edge of the front boundary. To the east of the building is a modern concrete brickwork paved courtyard; to the west is a similarly paved driveway to the rear. The rear yard is paved in the same manner, with a rubble stone wall to the east boundary, plain railings to the south boundary, and a modern building on the adjoining property as the west boundary.