Ballyholme Presbyterian Church, Ashley Drive, Bangor, Co Down, BT20 5RD

Ballyholme Presbyterian Church is a double-height Gothic-style church with tower erected between 1959 and 1961 to the designs of Belfast-based architect E.P. Lamont. The church opened on 11 February 1961. Although built in an unusual Gothic style for a church of this period, the interior detailing and materials reveal its modernity. The building has been altered little since construction, though it is a late example of the type and not among the best. Additional structures to the rear detract from its overall appearance.

The church is located in suburban Bangor, approximately 1.5 miles east of the town centre, and comprises a central nave with side aisles. The building features a pitched pan-tile roof with cast-iron rainwater goods, concealed gutters with rectangular hopper-heads and circular down-pipes. The walls are constructed in red brick laid in English Garden Wall bond with a projected plinth. Three-stage lateral buttressing and reconstituted sandstone block dressings and mouldings complete the external fabric.

The principal south elevation presents a symmetrically arranged gable façade with a tower to the right. The gable is buttressed with saddle-coping and has a pitched moulded drip course below. A large single centrally located Gothic arched window with interlacing tracery dominates the façade, with long-and-short surrounds, chamfered cills, label moulding and a moulded three-stage surround to the timber diagonally sheeted double entrance doors below. The tower is square plan, three-stage with lateral buttressing and mould drip coursing. The ground-floor front entrance is on the south façade, with a diminished square-headed window at gallery level to the south and east façades. Timber louvered openings appear to all tower facades at the top stage, rising above a billeted course to a parapet with raised corners.

The west elevation comprises a buttressed four-window-wide nave abutted at ground-floor level by a single-storey aisle with diminished square-headed windows. Saddle-coping and moulded drip courses crown the parapets. The left side is abutted by a blank double-height buttressed projection, further abutted by a two-storey extension built in 1993 of no significant interest. The east elevation matches the west, with the tower abutting the left side and a gabled double-height projection to the right matching the gable details with a large central window. The rear north gable matches the front gable and is abutted by a diminished gable with large central window. The ground floor is largely abutted by single-storey flat-roofed secondary accommodation linking to the earlier church hall built c.1940. This rear accommodation comprises a recessed rear entrance and adjacent single-stage lateral buttressing and bi-partite square-headed window.

A church hall was constructed on the north side of Ashley Drive in 1937 by Thomas Houston. The congregation met there for 20 years until the current church was constructed to the south c.1960. Reverend William Erskine served as Minister from 1941 until 1978. A second church hall, named the William Erskine Hall, was erected c.1978. Both the earlier church hall and the William Erskine Hall are now connected to the church via a two-storey extension added c.1993.

The site is set within predominantly two-storey suburban townscape. Immediately north is a two-storey modern townhouse development. To the south-east is Ballyholme Primary School. The site is enclosed by a red brick wall with piers and iron gates providing pedestrian and vehicular access. A tarmac car park area occupies the north and east of the site.