Brookvale Presbyterian Church, Brookvale Road, Banbridge, Co Down, BT32 5QY

Brookvale Presbyterian Church is a free-standing, single-storey rendered church dating from 1894, replacing an earlier building erected on the same site in 1833. It sits on an elevated plot to the east of Brookvale Road, rectangular on plan and oriented on a north-south axis, with an entrance porch to the north and an extension to the south. The building has been extensively refurbished, most notably around 1990 and again with a further single-storey hall added to the east around 2000. While the simple form of this rural church has survived, the loss of its original glazing compromises its character. It is of a common type and is not considered among the best examples of its kind.

The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, cast-iron guttering on iron brackets, and cast-iron downpipes. The walls are finished in painted ruled-and-lined render with painted rusticated rendered quoins and a projecting plinth course. Window openings are pointed-headed with moulded architrave surrounds, painted masonry sills, and replacement hardwood Y-tracery windows. The principal west elevation is four windows wide and features a central recessed slate date plaque inscribed "BROOKVALE / ERECTED 1833 / RENOVATED 1894". The windows here have leaded glazing with coloured margin lights. The north gable is blank and is abutted by a small gable-ended entrance porch with a pitched natural slate roof and a square-headed door opening to the west, fitted with a replacement hardwood door. The east elevation is also four windows wide. The south gable is blank and is abutted by a single-storey extension with a pitched artificial slate roof and square-headed window openings fitted with hardwood casement windows; a flat-roofed entrance porch in the re-entrant angle has a hardwood sheeted door.

The site is set out in lawns and enclosed towards the road by cement rendered walls with steel gates on rendered piers. To the north of the entrance gates is a single-storey rendered structure, and a further single-storey hall stands to the east of the site. Bitmac driveways encircle the church. A small burial ground lies to the east, containing largely late 20th-century polished stone grave markers. The church overlooks a crossroads on Loughbrickland Road.

The congregation at Brookvale was established as a Seceder cause in 1833, originally known as Grallagh or Ballymogra. A Covenanters' Meeting House is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833, square on plan and occupying a remote rural site. The Townland Valuation of 1828 to 1840 lists the building at a valuation of £7 3s, noting that at the time of survey it was unfinished and "not ceiled". Recorded dimensions of 65 by 31 by 18 feet suggest the contemporary map representation is not to scale. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs record in 1834 that the house had been "lately" built by subscription and was capable of holding 400 persons. By the time of Griffith's Valuation (1856 to 1864) the building is recorded as a Presbyterian Meeting House with a sexton's house and yard of 1 rood 35 perches, valued at £8. The contemporary map shows a rectangular structure with an attached extension much as it appears today, together with a sexton's house at the roadside which appears to have survived. No further changes appear in the Annual Revisions.

The Newry Telegraph recorded on 15th November 1833 that the Earl of Roden had donated £5 towards the building of the meeting house for a congregation "lately formed at Ballymagna". The first minister was the Reverend James Patterson, who served from 1834 to 1837, succeeded by the Reverend John Carey in 1840. Carey (1800 to 1891), who claimed descent from Anne Boleyn's sister, had previously been ordained on 2nd April 1839 as minister of the new church of Albany in County Tyrone, resigning a year later following a disagreement over financial matters and the provision of regular services. He was then installed at Brookvale but was suspended after two years for attempting to obtain money for his congregation using a forged document, and was ultimately deposed from the ministry by the General Assembly. In February 1843 he was accused of the attempted murder of a clerical colleague who had been his opponent and who was shot and wounded while praying in his pulpit. Carey escaped charges and went into the flax business, eventually moving to Rarity Cottage in Toome, where through money-lending and trading in sand and eels he considerably increased his wealth. He became a generous benefactor to the Presbyterian Church, founding a studentship for intending missionaries, building a church in Gujarat, India, and establishing the Carey Lectureship — an annual series of lectures delivered at Magee College, Derry, or the Union Theological College. Politically a liberal, Carey supported the tenant right campaign. When the local landlord refused permission for Toome village hall to be used for a political meeting, Carey built a large meeting room known as the "Temple of Liberty, Learning and Select Amusement", seating 1,500 people, with a library of 5,000 books and a £600 pipe organ. This building survived until 1911, when it was destroyed by arson.

According to the datestone on the church, renovation work took place in 1894. A valuation plan drawn up in the 1930s shows the church with single-storey extensions to the north and south, a sexton's house, and a store of wood and corrugated iron to the south, which appears since to have been rebuilt in more durable materials. The congregation was united with First Rathfriland from 1933 to 1969 and then with Ryans from 1970. The church reopened in May 1984 following extensive redecoration and refurbishment carried out by builders John McDowell, Jack Andrews and Trevor Graham, and refurbishers Stanley Moore & Son Ltd. Gifts received for the works included vestibule doors, a ceiling, a lighting system, carpeting, a reading desk, entrance gates, and a public address system, while an anonymous donor provided the slates for the new roof. A photograph of the renovation published in the Mourne Observer shows the church with quoins painted in a dark colour, which have since been removed. Membership at the time of survey stood at 50 families.