Presbyterian Church, Ashley Park, Dunmurry, Co. Antrim

Dunmurry Presbyterian Church is a free-standing, double-height polychromatic brick church with a prominent four-stage entrance tower, designed by John Corry (1831–1908) and dated 1860, with extensions carried out in 1903 by Young & Mackenzie. It sits on an elevated site to the southwest of Ashley Park and to the northwest of Queensway, overlooking the railway line at Dunmurry, County Antrim. The building is cruciform on plan, largely symmetrical, and faces east. Its unusual polychromatic brickwork, well-ordered fenestration, robust detailing, and emphatically vertical composition make it a distinctive mid-Victorian church combining both Romanesque and Gothic influences.

The walling is redbrick laid in Flemish bond with yellowbrick corner pilasters and a plinth course. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with roll-moulded terracotta ridge tiles set slightly below masonry copings to lead-lined gable ends. Moulded cast-iron guttering runs to a deep yellowbrick eaves cornice, with cast-iron downpipes throughout. Round-headed stepped window openings feature yellowbrick decoration, a continuous moulded render impost moulding, moulded render sills, and yellowbrick aprons. Leaded coloured fixed-pane glazing is used throughout the building.

The most striking feature is the slender, square-plan, four-stage polychromatic brick tower, which is placed centrally on the main façade and abuts the front gable. It has a steeply pitched and sprocketed pyramidal roof covered in fish-scale natural slate with rolled lead ridges, each pitch broken by a small lead-lined gable to each elevation and finished with a deep corbelled yellowbrick cornice. Uninterrupted yellowbrick corner piers flank each elevation of the tower. The upper stage features paired round-headed window openings on all four sides, formed in polychromatic brick with angled yellowbrick hood mouldings, a central squat column with a stiff-leaf capital, and flanking yellowbrick piers with matching stiff-leaf capitals. An angled oculus sits above the paired windows, with a yellowbrick apron below. Beneath the upper stage window is a large yellowbrick oculus fitted with timber louvres. The second stage has a further round-headed window opening with paired slender openings and a central squat column with a stiff-leaf capital, all set within a recessed red sandstone panel with a corbelled sandstone sill.

At ground level, the tower has a round-headed door opening with a polychromatic brick arch and original double-leaf timber panelled doors with a leaded fanlight. The door is flanked by columns on raised plinth blocks with stiff-leaf capitals, and opens onto three stone steps leading to a front bitmac area. Above the door is a stone date plaque in an angled yellowbrick frame inscribed 'MDCCCLX' (1860). To either side of the tower is a round-headed window opening matching those on the nave elevations, though these are now obscured by flat-roofed redbrick accretions, each of which has three round-headed window openings with leaded glazing.

The south nave elevation is three windows wide and has a central pedimented breakfront with full-height yellowbrick corner piers, paired window openings as described above, and a blind polychromatic oculus above. The transepts to the rear project well beyond the nave elevation as large gables, detailed to match the nave, with a pair of diminutive round-headed window openings at basement level and a further window opening to the re-entrant angle. The west rear elevation is formed by the rear elevations of the two transepts, with a central plain redbrick pier and two windows to either side, detailed as per the nave. At basement level this elevation also has a series of round-headed window and door openings, with timber sash windows having margin lights and vertically-sheeted, wood-grained timber doors. The north nave elevation matches the south.

The interior is relatively intact and contributes to the building's architectural interest.

The church is set within a mature landscaped setting, now enclosed by modern security railings. A former two-storey manse, also built in polychromatic brick, survives to the northwest within the church grounds.

The congregation's origins date to between 1676 and 1683, though the precise location of its earliest meeting place is not recorded. In 1829, the Reverend Henry Montgomery led a large number of his congregation in seceding from the Synod of Ulster, retaining possession of the existing church and manse. In response, a new congregation was organised for the Synod by the Reverend Dr. John Edgar in March 1860, with the Reverend Robert James Arnold installed as its first minister later that year. This new congregation was established in the wake of the 1859 Religious Revival, a period of significant religious renewal throughout Ulster. Historical sources indicate that the church built in 1860 was initially only a temporary structure, and that the present building was constructed in 1863 along with a schoolhouse and a teacher's residence. The church first appears on the third Ordnance Survey map of the area (1901), depicted as an L-shaped building. It does not appear on the second edition map of 1858, but is recorded in Griffith's Valuation of 1860 as a 'Presbyterian Meeting House' valued at £6 and let by a Mr. Samuel Duffield, placing its construction date between 1858 and 1860. By the fourth edition Ordnance Survey map (1920–21), a rear chancel had been added; architect's specifications confirm that a new roof was also installed at this time.

John Corry, who designed the church, was a Belfast-based amateur architect who also designed Elmwood Presbyterian Church in Belfast during the same period. The 1903 extension was carried out by Young & Mackenzie, the most successful architects of the period based in Belfast and leading designers for the Presbyterian Church, responsible for many churches across Ulster including the Presbyterian Assembly Building. In 1931, a church hall was added by Ferguson & McIlveen, a firm known for constructing private houses in the years before the Second World War. During the incumbency of the Reverend William Cowper Lynas (1961–1989), the church hall was greatly extended at a cost of £20,000, but was destroyed in a sectarian bomb attack in 1971. A new hall was constructed in 1973. The church was listed in 1990. The Reverend John Braithwaite succeeded Lynas in 1990, and in 2008 both the church and the manse were sold to make way for a new modern church building. The congregation continued to use the church until the end of 2010, when the new building was expected to be completed. At the time of survey, the new owners were understood to be considering converting the church into offices or private apartments.