Methodist Church, Maypole Hill, Dromore, Co Down, BT25 1BQ

Dromore Methodist Church is a double-height, gabled, three-bay polychrome red-brick building designed by the architect William Gray and built in 1870–71. It stands on the west side of Maypole Hill in Dromore town centre, directly opposite St Colman's Parish Church. Associated with it are a single-storey former Sunday school (now used as the Minister's office) and a two-storey manse, all forming a group of some architectural interest. The church is a good representative example of a late-Victorian Wesleyan meeting house, retaining much of its historic fabric, though this is somewhat compromised by the later insertion of uPVC windows of inappropriate style.

The church is rectangular on plan, with a single-storey gabled porch to the front and a modern single-storey lean-to abutment to the rear, which is of no architectural interest. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate, with raised verges, cavetto-moulded kneeler stones and finials to the gables. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods are carried on projecting brick eaves. The walls are built in English garden wall bond red-brick on a stone plinth, with a mid-level decorative logged yellow-brick string-course, a black brick string-course at impost level, and a platband. The windows are likely original; some are leaded-and-stained glass, others are margin-paned with coloured glass. Ground-floor windows have cambered heads and first-floor windows are round-headed, all with painted sills and decorative polychrome brick voussoirs.

The principal elevation faces east. It features a large plate tracery oculus above the central gabled porch, with windows to the left and right at gallery level. A carved banner to the porch gable reads "WESLEYAN". The twin entrances are flanked by corner pilasters and divided by a semi-engaged column, all with ornately carved capitals. The doors are diagonally timber-sheeted with fixed tympana set in round-headed openings, with sandstone thresholds. This porch bears visible evidence of a rectification carried out in the 1870s following a dispute between Gray and the Belfast architect Timothy Hevey, described below. The south elevation has five evenly spaced windows to the ground floor and gallery. The west elevation is blank, abutted by the modern lean-to. The north elevation is abutted on the left by the adjoining Minister's office; it has two timber oculi to the gallery on the left and two round-headed windows on the right, with a segmental-headed window to the ground floor on the right.

The adjoining single-storey former Sunday school, now the Minister's office, is similarly styled to the church in stretcher-bonded red-brick. It has a pitched slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles and a projecting entrance porch to the front, flanked by a uPVC window to each side. The porch has bargeboards to its gable and contains a double-leaf timber-sheeted entrance door with a round-headed fixed tympanum and flush sandstone voussoirs. The building has been modified to the rear to incorporate a cement-rendered flat-roof return, with timber-sheeted double-leaf doors to the right of the return.

The manse is two storeys and three bays, symmetrically arranged, with a projecting ground-floor incorporating a modern entrance porch. It has a pitched natural slate roof with rendered chimneystacks to the gables. uPVC windows are fitted throughout, and a modern uPVC entrance door is flanked by sidelights and surmounted by a transom light.

The church is set back from the main road behind a parapet wall with coping stones topped by original cast-iron railings with fleur-de-lis finials. This boundary extends northward to incorporate the Minister's office and manse. A modern two-storey cement-rendered church hall stands to the rear, along with a large tarmacked car park.

Historical background

Methodism in Dromore began with evangelical outreach from the Lisburn Circuit in 1779. Although John Wesley is known to have visited Dromore in 1767, he does not appear to have preached in the town. The first services took place in the home of a poor widow in Meeting Street and, as numbers grew, two small houses in the same street were taken over and a large room constructed between them, in which services were held for eleven years. The first Methodist church on the present site was built in 1815 through the efforts of John Ross, a native of Clare, near Lurgan, who was a notable Local Preacher and Class Leader and is known as "the father of Dromore Methodism". Ross obtained the current site, which was leased to the Methodists by Bishop John Leslie, Church of Ireland Bishop of Dromore. The early building on the site was a plain structure with forms and a desk, later replaced by a pulpit.

The 1859 Revival had a dramatic effect on the Dromore Circuit. The increase in the congregation that followed was a significant factor in the drive to construct a new and larger church. Funds were raised by application to members of other denominations, who responded generously — it was felt, because of the reputation of Methodists as non-sectarian. The foundation stone of the new church was laid on 28th April 1870 by Mr James Freckleton, a member of the building committee. As was customary, a bottle was deposited in the cavity of the foundation stone containing copies of newspapers, the minutes of the last Irish Conference, and a parchment roll carrying the names of the building committee and ministers. The old chapel had been in a reportedly "hopelessly bad" condition, and the congregation, led by Reverend R. Maxwell, had arranged for a new church to be built with a "commodious" schoolroom attached. The total cost was nearly £800, of which upwards of £600 had been subscribed. The contractor was Adam George of Holywood. The new church was opened on Sunday 19th March 1871, and a gallery was later added, bringing the total accommodation to 350 people. James McDade, the secretary of the Building Committee, is credited with much of the work leading to the successful completion of the church.

William Gray's design for the church became the subject of a notable public dispute with the Belfast architect Timothy Hevey. During a lecture entitled "On Church Building", delivered at a meeting of the Belfast Architectural Association on 8th November 1875, Hevey criticised architects who lacked "a proper knowledge of the beautiful and correct" in relation to Gothic architecture, and used as an example — without naming the building or its architect — the Methodist Church in Dromore. He described what he called the "extraordinary architectural phenomenon" of a central pier and two lateral piers in the porch, "having a capital on a column projecting beyond everything and carrying nothing", which he considered contrary to the principle that architecture should "ornament construction and not construct ornament". Hevey's criticism, published in the Irish Builder, prompted an immediate response from Gray, who protested that the fault had been a "builder's temporary blunder" and not part of his original design, and had in any case since been rectified. Hevey responded with a further retort in which he criticised the design more broadly as "destitute of any architectural features save...a projecting stone porch in gable and a stone circular window over it", and described the rectification as having been achieved by bringing "the archstones forward on to the caps, and setting in behind them, to fill up the vacuum, new stones, which by reason of their light colour afford an agreeable (?) contrast to the dull grey of the old stonework". The visible evidence of this rectification can still be seen in the porch today. In the course of the same correspondence, Gray and Hevey also appear to indicate that Gray was the designer of the manse, which was completed in 1875.

Valuation records show that the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel and school were entered into valuation records in 1875, valued at £27 and £8 respectively. Earlier records from Griffith's Valuation reveal that a Wesleyan Methodist Chapel valued at £1 had stood on the site next to a Primitive Methodist Chapel and yard valued at £7. The Primitive Methodist church had come about through a rift within Methodism in 1818, when the Wesleyan Methodists began to administer their own sacraments rather than relying on the established Church for baptism and Eucharist. Primitive Wesleyans preferred to retain the earlier relationship with the Church of Ireland and broke away. Services were initially held in a rented house in Gallows Street from 1827, and a new church was built in the 1830s, first shown on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1859. By 1878 the two branches had reunited and there was no longer any need to maintain a separate building. A Methodist New Connexion Church was also established in Dromore, though little is known of its history; this branch merged with the parent church in 1905. The Primitive Methodist chapel and yard, occupying the site now used as a car park, remained until 1885.

Town plans from the late 19th century show the present church, Sunday school with separate outbuildings to the rear, and the manse with its return. No significant changes to the church buildings were recorded in the Annual Revisions. The First General Revaluation of the early 1930s revalued the church and Sunday school together at £42, and a plan from that period shows the church with an internal gallery around three sides, a rear extension containing a heating boiler, and the Sunday school with porch and coal store. The Sunday school was extended to the rear in the late 1930s, adding a kitchen and toilets, with a further large extension added in more recent years abutting the first.

In the late 19th century a Miss Pantridge donated the funds to purchase the site on which the church stands, amid fears that the Methodist and Roman Catholic sites were to be transferred to the Land Commission. In the early 20th century the Ulster evangelist Billy Spence led a missionary movement during which the church became so crowded on one particular occasion that the gallery was in danger of collapsing, and two strong beams had to be inserted shortly afterwards. A memorial window commemorates Lady Clarence Graham, who opened the First Dromore Girl Guides Company in 1941, with the Methodist Church hall as its headquarters. The church hall also housed a lending library of 1,625 volumes collected by James McDade, which opened in 1884 and lent books to the public for a nominal subscription until at least 1909. For many years a flourishing afternoon Sunday school catered for every denomination in the town, with between 150 and 200 pupils; this closed in 1963 when afternoon schools opened in other churches in the town. In 1979 the church marked the bicentenary of Methodism in Dromore, and the sanctuary was redecorated as part of the celebrations.