Ballydown Presbyterian Church, 151 Castlewellan Road, Banbridge, Co Down, BT32 4JP

Ballydown Presbyterian Church was a free-standing, single-cell, single-storey, double-height rendered church, dated 1904, designed by William Wright Larmor of Banbridge to replace an earlier church on the same site built in 1798. The building was demolished prior to listing in 2019.

The church was rectangular on plan, set on an east-west axis on a sloping site at a lower level to the south of Castlewellan Road. Its pitched natural slate roof was finished with decorative terracotta ridge comb tiles, cement coping to the raised gables, and decoratively moulded kneelers to the eaves. Rainwater was carried by moulded cast-iron guttering supported on moulded eaves corbels, with square-profile downpipes fitted with decorative brackets. The walls were finished in pebbledash render with a smooth rendered plinth course, decoratively moulded render quoins, and a continuous moulded sill course. Window openings were pointed-headed with stop-chamfered smooth rendered surrounds, hood mouldings, and coloured leaded glazing with storm glazing.

The symmetrical gabled east front elevation featured a tripartite window opening at the upper level with a continuous hood moulding and moulded sill. A decoratively moulded plaque above the entrance read: 'BALLYDOWN / BUILT 1798 / REBUILT 1904 / PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH'. Flanking the central pointed-headed door opening were diminutive pointed-headed windows. The doorway itself had a deep moulded archivolt supported on a pair of plain columns resting on plinth blocks, with a hood moulding and original diagonally-sheeted double-leaf timber doors with decorative iron door furniture. The doors opened onto a concrete-paved platform with three steps and a universal access ramp. The south elevation was six windows wide.

The gabled west elevation had two pointed-headed window openings at the upper level containing notable decorative stained glass windows. An off-centre lower gabled rear entrance porch abutted this gable, detailed in the same manner as the main body of the church, with a pitched natural slate roof, a pointed-headed door opening with hood moulding, and a vertically-sheeted woodgrained timber door with decorative iron door furniture, opening onto two moulded concrete steps with a steel universal access ramp. The north elevation was six windows wide.

Although modest in its external appearance and simple in plan, the church's restrained detailing lifted it above purely vernacular church architecture through the consistent use of 19th-century Gothic detailing. Internally, the building retained an unusually detailed roof structure along with all original fixtures and fittings, a pair of notable stained glass windows to the west gable, and most of the original interior fittings.

The church was set on a sloping site encircled by bitmac paths, with stone and marble grave markers located mainly to the north, west, and south. Two bitmac drives rose to meet Castlewellan Road, the western drive opening onto the road through decorative wrought and cast-iron gates supported on rendered brick piers with gableted capstones. To the west of this entrance stood a two-storey rendered house built around 1950. To the northeast of the site was a detached rendered church hall built around 1980 with a large parking area, which compromised the setting of the church.

The congregation at Ballydown dates from 1796, when a petition was made to the Presbytery of Down who granted supply of sermon. The first meeting house was built in 1798, and a minister, Mr John Rutherford, was ordained in 1800. John Rutherford was succeeded by his own son, also named John Rutherford, who remained at Ballydown until 1874 when he emigrated to the United States. The earlier meeting house is described in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs as a stone building, roughcast and whitewashed, with a roof that was not ceiled and aisles that were not boarded. The pews were described as very plain, accommodating 400 persons, and the house cost approximately £500, raised by subscription.

A 'Seceder's Meeting House' is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833 as a rectangular structure on a small plot surrounded by trees. The Townland Valuation of 1828 to 1840 values the meeting house at £6 16s. Griffith's Valuation of 1856 to 1864 lists the Presbyterian church, offices and yard, a national school house, a sexton's house and garden, valuing the buildings at £19 with £1 for the acre of land. The meeting house measured 20 yards by 11 and was described as 'plain finished'. Two car houses and stables formed part of the church outbuildings. The school measured 8 by 5 yards, and the sexton's house was a single-storey thatched building 13 yards long. No further changes were recorded in the Annual Revisions.

In February 1904 tenders were invited in the pages of the Irish Builder for the rebuilding of the church to designs by William Wright Larmor, and the opening services were held in May 1905. The contractor was George Patton of Lurgan. The heating contract was carried out by Messrs Musgrave and Company of Belfast, leaded lights were supplied by Campbell Bros of Belfast, lamps by Messrs Richard Patterson and Company of Belfast, and the pulpit was carved by Thomas Proctor of Banbridge, of whom it was noted that his work 'has been greatly admired and reflects much credit on the maker'. A marble tablet in the vestibule commemorating the laying of the foundation stone and recording the names of past ministers was executed by Mr Emerson of Banbridge. J E Leinster, perhaps a relative of the minister at the time, Edward Carleton Leinster, travelled to Brookline in Boston to raise funds to clear the debt on the church, raising nearly $300 from members of the Brookline congregation.

In the first general revaluation of the 1930s the church was described as 'substantial and well built', giving accommodation for 400. Heating was by hot water pipes and lighting by oil lamps. A single-storey school building to the east, erected in 1864 and later converted to a church hall, was by then gone. The congregation at Ballydown was united with Katesbridge in 1938, though this union was dissolved in 2009. Ministers of the united charge included Robert Buick Knox (1938 to 1942) and his son, also Robert Buick Knox, a scholar and historian who resigned in 1957 on being appointed Professor of Church History at Aberystwyth and later became a professor at Cambridge. At the time of the listing record, the congregation stood at around 165 families.