Presbyterian Church, 32 Townsend Street, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT13 2ES

Townsend Street Presbyterian Church

This is a free-standing, gable-fronted, double-height Presbyterian church in an asymmetrical French Romanesque style, designed by the Belfast architectural partnership Young and MacKenzie and opened on 13 October 1878. The building replaced an earlier meeting house that had stood on the same site since its construction in 1833 — recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map as an oblong building then on the western outskirts of Belfast, a presence that gave Townsend Street its name. The congregation had originated as an extension of Fisherwick Presbyterian Church, established in 1828 to serve the growing Smithfield area. By the time the current building was commissioned, the congregation had expanded significantly under the ministry of the Reverend William Johnston (1818–1894), a twice-appointed Moderator of the General Assembly who served for 45 years and was described as the acknowledged leader of the General Assembly in the 1870s. When first opened, the church could accommodate a congregation of 1,400.

The total construction cost was approximately £10,000, with building work carried out by a Mr William McCammond using Scrabo Freestone. The tower visible today was not part of the original completed building but was added prior to 1901–02, as confirmed by the third edition Ordnance Survey map for Belfast. The listing covers the church itself together with its railings, gates, and piers.

Architectural Overview

The church is rectangular on plan, oriented east–west, with a central nave flanked by north and south gallery nave arcades, an entrance vestibule, and double gallery stairwells at the east end. A single-storey extension at the west contains a minister's room and prayer room. The roofs are pitched natural slate with blue-black clay ridge tiles, lead valleys, and stone verges supported on moulded skew-corbels. A chimney sits at the west verge; the east verge is supported by a moulded corbel table. Rainwater goods are cast-iron ogee pattern, supported on exposed overhanging rafters.

The walling is roughly coursed, rock-faced red sandstone with ashlar dressings. The gallery nave arcades have angle buttresses with offsets and projecting gablets. Nave windows at ground floor are paired cusped lancets with leaded glass; at gallery level the windows are bipartite segmental-arched leaded lights with cusped oculus lights above, unless otherwise noted.

Principal East Elevation

The principal elevation faces east and is asymmetrically arranged. At its centre is a gabled bay abutted at ground floor by a projecting gabled entrance of considerable elaboration: a multiple arcaded doorway consisting of five colonnettes with carved capitals and a frieze supporting four torus-moulded segmental arches. The inner arch carries a carved leaf detail; the outer colonnettes are surmounted by gablets. A central granite colonnette divides a pair of timber panelled doors. The tympanum above is carved with an oculus at its centre containing an open Bible, with a burning bush depicted to the right and left. A carved inscription on the tympanum reads: GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST / AND / ON EARTH PEACE GOODWILL TOWARD MEN. The entrance is flanked by diminished segmental-arched windows with torus-moulded architraves and splayed sills.

Above the principal entrance runs a Lombardy frieze below a moulded stringcourse with fleuron detailing, surmounted by large paired leaded stained glass windows. Each of these comprises three segmental-arched lancets with seven oculus lights above, all contained within a double segmental-arched architrave supported on paired colonnettes. The paired windows are in turn surmounted by an oculus containing a trefoil.

The north-east tower rises in three stages, detailed in the same manner as the central nave, with a bellcast pyramidal roof, set-back angle buttresses with ashlar offsets, and shafts continuing to the roof. At ground floor on the east elevation the tower has an entrance flanked by two blind oculus lights above; the second stage contains paired segmental-arched windows; the third stage is blank. The tower entrance consists of a double segmental-arched opening with paired colonnettes and carved capitals supporting two torus-moulded segmental arches, the inner arch again carrying a carved leaf detail. The arches are surmounted by a segmental-arched hoodmould with head-stops and a moulded tympanum.

The south-east tower is detailed as the central nave; its east elevation mirrors the north-east tower at first and second stage, but the second stage is surmounted by a pyramidal roof behind a parapet Lombardy frieze with attached pinnacled clasping buttresses.

All three eastern entrances are accessed via five masonry steps running the full length of the east elevation, with replacement handrails at the centre.

South and North Elevations

The south elevation is six windows wide, with the south-east tower attached at the right. Each bay contains a single window at ground floor and at gallery level, with the bays divided by set-back angle buttresses with ashlar offsets and gablets projecting through the roofline. The tower's south elevation mirrors the east, with paired but diminished windows at half-landing level to the left and a single window to the right. An entrance porch abuts the nave at the second bay from the left. This porch is detailed in the same manner as the nave, with a pitched natural slate roof, stone verges, replacement rainwater goods, and segmental-arched openings with ovolo mouldings at east and west. The porch floor is laid with polychromatic geometric tiles, and double timber panelled doors give access to the nave.

The north elevation and its entrance porch are detailed as the south, with some replacement rainwater goods.

West Elevation

The west elevation comprises triple gables abutted at ground floor by a curved single-storey lean-to extension. The gallery nave arcade gables each contain a single window. The west extension has a replacement glazed timber panelled door with two timber sashes to the left and three timber sashes to the right; a timber panelled door at the south gives access to the boiler house via two masonry steps.

Interior

The interior is of significant architectural merit and retains much of its original fabric. The nave is galleried on three sides, with the north and south gallery nave arcades supported on cast-iron columns with Gothic capitals. The rich interior retains its original leaded cusped stained glass windows by Ethel Rhind (1878–1952), a Dublin-based mosaic and stained glass artist and pupil of Alfred Child, whose windows were installed in two phases, in 1913 and again in 1921–22. Architectural commentator C. E. B. Brett described the interior as resembling a very tall and broad Georgian preaching-house in style, with a curved rear wall and seating arrangements comparable to those of a continental parliament.

Historical and Architectural Context

Young and MacKenzie was a partnership formed between Robert Young and his former pupil John MacKenzie in 1867–68. By the early 20th century it had become the most successful architectural practice in Belfast, serving as the leading architects for the Presbyterian Church in the north-east of Ireland while also receiving major commercial commissions in the city.

The church is regarded as an example of the stylistic tensions of mid-to-late 19th-century Presbyterian church design, which was moving away from established Georgian classicism towards the experimental approaches of the Victorian era. Brett characterised the building as a remarkable stylistic hybrid: the facade and cathedral-Gothic doorway he considered fine, while noting that the side elevations are less successful, largely owing to the manner in which the buttresses protrude through the roofline, and that the tower aspires to be a spire but stops short. Paul Larmour identified the church as notable for its French Romanesque triple doorways, and observed that, like many of Young and MacKenzie's designs, the interior is galleried on three sides.

When first valued in the Griffith's Valuation of 1860, the original meeting house and its sexton's house were rated at £200 combined. The current church received the same initial valuation as its predecessor; it was not until the Belfast Revaluation of 1900 that the rating was raised to £320. By the First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland in 1935 the church's rating had risen to £580. The church survived the 1941 Belfast Blitz without damage.

Between 1930 and 1931, Belfast-based architect John MacGeagh (1901–1985) carried out alterations to the rear schoolhouse, converting it into a lecture hall and venue for congregational events, with work contracted to Cairn Brothers of Kandahar Street, Belfast.

The church was listed in 1985. During the Troubles its location at the interface between the Lower Falls Road/Divis Street and the Shankill Road areas caused a significant decline in attendance, a situation further compounded by the construction of the Westlink A12 road in 1981–83, which isolated the building from much of its congregation. Despite these pressures, the congregation has continued to meet here, with current attendance standing at approximately 160 families.

Setting

Townsend Street Presbyterian Church stands on the peace line between the Lower Shankill and the Lower Falls/Divis Street area of Belfast, immediately beside the main cross-city motorway and within five to ten minutes' walk of the city centre. To the west stands the former school house, now used as the church hall. To the south is a memorial hall dated 1939–45. A car park to the north is enclosed by rendered walling. The church grounds to the east are enclosed by cast-iron railings with decorative cast-iron piers bearing the initials JH. The church and its former school together form an imposing group that collectively represents the development of Presbyterianism in the city.