Church Hall, May Street Presbyterian Church, May Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 4NU

Church Hall, formerly Schoolhouse, May Street Presbyterian Church, Belfast

This attached two-storey church hall, originally built as a schoolhouse in 1858–59 to designs by Belfast architect John Boyd, stands on the south side of May Street to the east of Belfast city centre. It forms part of a group with the adjoining May Street Presbyterian Church to the west, to which it shares historical, architectural, and physical connections. The building retains much of its original character, both externally and internally, and is of considerable social importance.

Boyd was a Belfast-based architect active from around 1850 to 1895, working principally on churches and schoolhouses. After completing this schoolhouse he went on to undertake an extensive renovation and refurbishment of the church itself during the 1870s. The schoolhouse was designed in a distinct Classical style with Roman Doric columns and a triglyph entablature. Construction began in September 1858, with L & T Brown contracted as builders, and was completed by the end of 1859 at a total cost of £650. When first built, the building comprised two schoolrooms and a two-storey library. May Street Presbyterian had previously possessed two Sunday schoolrooms, but these were deemed insufficient for the congregation's needs, leading the church committee to commission Boyd's new building.

The plan is rectangular, comprising a two-storey block to the north abutted by a single-storey hall to the south, which is in turn further abutted to the south by a three-storey hipped return connecting to the rear of the church. The roof to the two-storey block is hipped natural slate with leaded hips sitting behind a stone cornice and parapet. The roof of the single-storey hall is pitched natural slate behind a shallow parapet with a concrete coping, and has steel-framed glazed rooflights to the apex. The external walls are painted ruled-and-lined render.

The principal elevation faces north onto May Street and presents a classically detailed, symmetrical façade. The ground floor is treated with banded rustication. At the centre of the lower ground floor is a round-arched entrance containing double-leaf timber panelled doors, surmounted at first floor level by a single window. The entrance is flanked on each side by a pair of square piers at ground floor level, which rise at first floor to columns with Doric capitals, each pair separated by a round-arched niche at ground floor level surmounted by a window at first floor. Above runs a moulded entablature with triglyphs and dentil mouldings to the cornice. The parapet above consists of a balustrade with a moulded cornice, surmounted by acroterions positioned over the columns.

The windows throughout are round-arched-headed timber-framed 2-over-2 sliding sashes with margin lights, set within painted moulded sandstone reveals. The keyblocks are carved with stylised fluted Ionic column details — an unusual and distinctive ornamental feature, particularly notable on the large double-height windows lighting the first floor. Steel mesh protection covers the window openings.

The east elevation is largely blank, comprising the single-storey hall at the centre, flanked to the left by the return and to the right by the two-storey block. The south elevation is abutted by the return; the exposed portion of the two-storey block at the south is in exposed brickwork and contains two square-headed steel-framed casement windows. The west elevation is abutted by the church; the exposed section of the two-storey block at the north contains a round-arched niche at ground floor level surmounted by a window at first floor. The return, which connects to the church, contains at lower ground floor a door opening flanked to the right by two square-headed windows; at ground floor, three round-arched-headed timber-framed 1-over-1 sliding sash windows with margin lights; and at first floor, three windows.

Rainwater goods are cast-iron half-round gutters with round downpipes.

The building sits within its own grounds on a restricted urban site, with the church attached to the west. The boundary to May Street at the north and Alfred Street at the west is formed by a painted rendered plinth wall with painted sandstone coping surmounted by cast-iron railings; the hall is accessed through double-leaf cast-iron gates. A rear entrance to the lower ground floor is accessed directly from Little May Street.

Griffith's Valuation recorded the schoolhouse together with the church at a combined value of £300, describing the school as a first-class building measuring 28 by 7 yards. The school and church continued to be valued together until 1906, when the school was first assessed individually at £280. Its value remained unchanged through the Annual Revisions until 1930. The first general revaluation of property in Northern Ireland in 1935 recorded the building as a Sunday school and once again assessed it together with the church, at a combined value of £610. By the time of the second general revaluation in 1956, by which point the building was first described as a church hall rather than a school, the combined value had risen to £1,350, subsequently reduced to £1,080 under the 1957 Rent and Valuation Act. The school had therefore ceased operating as such at some point between 1935 and 1956. During the Second World War, May Street Presbyterian Church received minor damage during a Luftwaffe attack on the Belfast shipyards; it is not known whether the adjoining schoolhouse suffered similar damage. The hall was listed in 1988 along with the adjoining church and continues to be used for church functions, with little alteration to the interior having taken place.