Methodist Church, Ferry Street, Portaferry, Co Down, BT22 1PB

Methodist Church, Ferry Street, Portaferry

This is a small, plain single-storey gabled Methodist chapel of circa 1786, built with later simple Gothic features and a gabled porch to the front. The building sits directly off the pavement on Ferry Street at the northern end of a terrace on the west side, at the junction with Cuan Place.

The Methodist congregation in Portaferry was established in the months immediately following John Wesley's visit to the Ards in 1778. The date of 1780 displayed on the front gable likely refers to the foundation of the Methodist Church within the town rather than the building itself. Historical records, including the first volume of the Methodist Conferences in Ireland dated 1786, show that Portaferry was given permission to build a church in that year, with construction taking place between 1786 and 1789. John Wesley preached in the building on his last visit to Ireland in 1789, addressing "a serious and well-behaved congregation" on the text "Stand Ye in Old Paths". The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1833 date the building to 1788 and record that it received a new roof in 1810, with seating comprising six seats and a number of forms irregularly placed.

The front elevation comprises two gables: the main hall gable and the porch gable, facing east. The north face of the porch features a vertically sheeted entrance door reached by four stone steps. Either side of the porch are single lancet windows with moulded hoods, stone cills and small diamond-pattern leaded coloured glass panes. A larger lancet window of similar detail is positioned centrally within the porch gable. A date plaque marked '1780' with a moulded circular frame, moulded hood and label stops sits in the main hall gable directly below the apex.

The main north façade has four single lancet windows with 'Y' tracery timber frames and diamond-patterned lead and coloured glass. Each window has a small hopper metal ventilation opening. To the south the chapel abuts a house (No. 1 Ferry Street), with only the western end (to the rear) exposed, revealing two windows matching those to the north. To the west the building abuts an adjoining wall, with the gable blank and rising approximately 2 feet above its single-storey neighbour.

The façade is finished in lined render and painted. The gabled roof is covered with Bangor blue slates. Both gables to the main hall, plus the gable to the porch, have moulded coping stones to their respective parapets. The parapets are corbelled at the eaves and finished with foliated finials to the main hall and a ball finial to the porch.

Renovations including decoration to the roof, the original front doorway and, possibly, construction of the porch were carried out later in the century, with a smaller porch or steps indicated on the valuation map of circa 1861. The building owes much to work undertaken by local builder Hugh Beck in 1904, who replaced the windows, ceiling and wainscoting and designed and made the pews.

The building is located within a conservation area.