Presbyterian Church, Hill St., Lurgan, Co.Armagh

Presbyterian Church, Hill Street, Lurgan, Co. Armagh

Built between 1861 and 1864 to a design by Belfast architect James McNea, this is one of the earliest Gothic Revival Presbyterian churches in the local area. Its significance lies partly in the fact that McNea broke decisively with the Classical architectural forms that most Presbyterian congregations had favoured up to this point, and in doing so anticipated the 'hall and corner tower' freestyle Gothic designs that the firm of Young & Mackenzie would popularise a decade later. As Lurgan's second oldest Presbyterian church and one of the earliest buildings on Hill Street itself, it carries considerable local importance. Despite the presence of a large modern extension, much of the original fabric survives intact.

The church is a largely basalt-built, Gothic style, single-storey double-height building with a reducing two-stage corner tower. A copper-clad octagonal spire was added to the tower after 1888. A large, contrasting modern two-storey hall extension — much broader than the church itself — was either rebuilt or substantially remodelled in 2003–04 and completely covers the entire west end of the building as well as part of the west end of the south elevation.

The church is rectangular in plan and faces roughly east, with the tower positioned at the north-east corner. To the east end of the south elevation there is a relatively narrow modern part-single, part two-storey projection serving as a link from the church to what was originally a pair of semi-detached houses, now extended and converted to church offices.

The walls are finished in squared, rock-faced, semi-coursed basalt, with quoins and other dressings in light grey-brown sandstone. Reducing diagonal buttresses in dressed sandstone, with curiously irregular infills in basalt, appear at the corners of the main body and at the lower stage of the tower. The gabled roof is slated, with lead-clad gable parapets, bracketed eaves, and three ridge ventilation projections, one of which is modern. Throughout the building, openings have pointed arch heads unless otherwise noted.

The front east gable features a central shallow entrance porch projection with a pitched roof covered in dressed stone tiles and end reducing buttresses. The pointed arch entrance has a moulded sandstone archivolt with three-quarter Tuscan column jambs, and is fitted with a modern door and overlight. Directly above the porch is a relatively large window with drip moulding, sandstone tracery and stained glazing. Above that again is a quatrefoil-like opening set within a small roundel recess.

The tower is finished in the same wall materials as the main body and has a sandstone parapet featuring a series of cusped niches in the manner of a blind arcade, with tall corner pinnacles. The octagonal spire has a lucarne to every other facet. The upper stage of the tower has tall louvred openings to its east, west and north faces, and the lower stage of the west face has a similarly sized window with stained glass. On the north face of the tower there is a doorway with a panelled and partially louvred timber door and arch panel, above which is a roundel datestone inscribed 'A.D.1862'. The north face of the main body of the church has four relatively tall windows with stained glazing; the south face has a similar arrangement, though most of these are obscured by the extensions to the south. The west gable is abutted by the modern hall extension, and only a small rendered upper portion remains visible. The hall extension contains no features of interest.

The pair of former two-storey semi-detached houses to the south, built after 1864, have retained much of their original external appearance but have been comprehensively refurbished. A large modern return has been added to their rear, along with the link connecting them to both the church and the hall extension — work that appears to have been carried out around 1993–94. All original window frames and doors have been replaced with modern versions, the chimneystacks removed, and the roof covering replaced with modern tiling.

Around the exposed north and east sides, the church is enclosed by low stone walling with painted stone coping and wrought-iron railings. A significant section of the north walling has been altered and now has concrete coping and railings of a slightly different design. The section of walling at the east end of the north side, beyond a pedestrian gateway, is lower and constructed in grey brick. The main gateway to the east has piers and coping matching the original sections of walling, and what appear to be original wrought-iron gates beneath a wrought-iron arch, which may originally have carried a lamp fitting. The area between the walling and the church has been re-paved.

The church was built for the 'Second Lurgan' or 'Hill Street' Presbyterian congregation. The congregation was established largely through the efforts of the Reverend L.E. Berkley, who had been appointed minister of the original Lurgan Presbyterian congregation in High Street — the present First Lurgan — in 1858. In the preceding decade the population of the town had practically doubled, and this growth, combined with the effects of the Great Revival of 1859, appears to have prompted the founding of the new congregation and the decision to build a permanent church. Hill Street itself was a relatively new thoroughfare at the time, first appearing by name in sources in 1855 and probably laid out not long before that — possibly, judging by the oldest houses along it, in the later 1840s.

The congregation initially met in a wooden hut close to the present site. A tender notice for the construction work was advertised in the summer of 1861, but the building was still under construction in late October 1862 when it 'suffered severely' in heavy gales: one of the gables, 'which was almost finished, after having stood the fury of the storm for several days, was overturned [and] the sidewalls also damaged by the shock of the fall.' This clearly delayed completion. Although the datestone on the tower reads '1862', the church was not officially opened — by the Reverend Henry Cooke — until 29 May 1864.

Map and valuation evidence shows that in its original form the church had a single-storey 18-foot-square projection, most likely a session room, centrally located on the rear gable. This was replaced before 1869 by a larger two-storey addition housing a schoolroom. The spire was added after 1888, as it does not appear in a photograph dating from around that time; its style suggests a date of around 1900. The church windows may also have been replaced at this stage, since the same photograph shows they originally had lattice panes. Maps indicate that between 1937 and 1954 the schoolroom section became linked via a narrow extension to a formerly separate structure to the west; by 1963–64 both had been replaced by a large single hall, which was itself either largely replaced or remodelled in 2003–04. The interior of the church appears to have been refurbished in the mid-20th century, possibly during the 1930s.

The listing covers the church together with its boundary walling and railings.