St Columba's Church of Ireland, Knock, Belfast, Co Antrim BT5 6JG

St Columba's Church of Ireland, Knock, Belfast

St Columba's is a large freestanding Gothic Revival Church of Ireland parish church, built in sandstone in 1896 and extended in 1900, 1930, 1964, and 1996. It stands on the south side of King's Road, Knock, Belfast, and sits comfortably within its suburban setting, making a positive contribution to the King's Road Conservation Area. The building is one of the better works of Belfast architect Samuel Patrick Close, and is notable for the quality of craft in its interior, the gradual and well-documented story of its construction, and its more than a century of continuous use by the local community.

Architecture and Exterior

The church is laid out on a cruciform plan, with a four-bay double-height clerestoried nave, transepts, and lean-to single-storey aisles. A truncated square-plan three-stage tower stands at the north-west corner, accompanied by a two-stage canted stair-tower with a stone roof. There are projecting entrance porches to the north of the east elevation and to the transept of the west elevation. A single-storey choir vestry annexe, built in 1996, is attached to the east by a link block.

The roofs are generally pitched and covered in natural slate, with terracotta ridge tiles. Rainwater goods are a mixture of cast-iron and plastic profiled sections, carried on cavetto-moulded sandstone eaves over masonry animal grotesque corbels. The aisle roofs are monopitched natural slate, with cast-iron cyma recta moulded rainwater goods on cavetto sandstone eaves. Uncapped sandstone chimneystacks rise to the south of the nave and vestry, and a rebuilt concrete chimneystack stands to the west of the chancel, abutting the vestry and rising from ground level to the height of the tower.

The walling is rock-faced buff sandstone, laid in block-and-sneck coursing, with a matching projecting plinth course beneath a chamfered sandstone string course. Staged buttressing is provided to the aisles, porches, and gable ends. Gable verges are finished with kneelers, decorative finials, and skewputts.

Windows are generally pointed-arched and arranged in groups of three. All have chamfered sandstone surrounds and contain stained and leaded lattice lights. North and south windows have cusped tracery, and all gable apexes carry foiled roundels, with the exception of the chancel. The principal elevation faces north and is gabled between the tower to the west and the projecting porch to the east. It is articulated by two-stage buttresses with stepped offsets and carries a Celtic cross masonry finial at the apex. The central window rests on a moulded sill course. The tower has single pointed-arched windows with roundels at belfry level, and staggered square windows to the stair-tower; the upper stage of the stair-tower is lit by three pointed-arched windows set in a smooth-faced ashlar sandstone frieze.

The east elevation is five bays wide at clerestory level. The porch is lit to its north cheek and is detailed with a Celtic cross finial, skew table, and kneeler stones to the gable. The principal entrance on the east comprises double-leaf multi-panelled timber doors set in an ordered ashlar sandstone surround with a hoodmould carrying carved finials. The south gable is abutted by the chancel, which is slightly lower and detailed in the same manner as the main body of the church, with a central group of cusped tracery stained glass windows above three masonry string courses. The west elevation mirrors the east, with the vestry abutting the south wall of the western transept. The transept windows on this elevation are covered by a metal grille. The vestry has a single window and a shouldered-lintel entrance containing a sheeted timber door, reached by a sandstone staircase. A secondary entrance in a porch abutting the north wall of the western transept — which served as the original entrance before the 1900 extension — has a lintel and door matching those of the vestry.

The 1996 choir vestry annexe has a steep hipped roof and sandstone-faced walls, and is attached to the east of the main building by a link block. It is connected to the east transept by a wooden vestibule with decorative wooden panel walling and a roof of mixed lead and uPVC. The vestry has pointed-arched windows containing stained glass; the two windows within the vestry itself were provided by St Columba's Mothers' Union.

A truncated tower of the same form also appears at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Bangor, another work by Samuel Patrick Close.

Interior

The interior retains its design integrity and displays original fine craftsmanship throughout. The simplified hammer beam roof, oak altar furniture, encaustic floor tiling, and oak pews are all original. The Neo-Romanesque reredos is unusual in its design; it was installed in 1937, along with oak stalls and panelling, as a memorial to Canon Frederick Austin and his wife, to Celtic Romanesque designs supplied by Richard Close, son of the original architect. In 1996 a vibrant stained glass west window by the firm of James Watson and Co. — depicting St Columba and the Four Evangelists — replaced a plain glass opening. A stained glass window on the north aisle, installed in 1964, is dedicated to the first curate, the Reverend Francis Graham, and his wife Hester. More recently, the west end of the church was refurbished to accommodate a coffee dock and bookcase, and two rows of pews were removed to create a larger gathering space. The rededication of the rose window and the refurbished west end took place on 5 June 2016, marking the church's 120th anniversary.

Setting

The church stands on the south side of a leafy residential street, bounded on both sides by trees and bushes. To the front it is enclosed behind a low hedge and a grass lawn. To the east a small lawn gives way predominantly to paving, providing access to the Rectory, the Church Hall (built around 1961), and the choir vestry, all reached through decorative wrought-iron gates with cast-iron piers. A small Garden of Rest and a large Edwardian Rectory of around 1912 sit to the rear of the church. Parking is located on the western side.

History

The townland of Ballycloghan, in which the church stands, remained predominantly rural until the arrival of the railway in 1850–51 opened the area to suburban development. The second valuation map, annotated around 1865, shows a rough outline of the future King's Road cutting through open fields, while the larger-scale 1896 Ordnance Survey plan shows the road lined with villas of various sizes and the transition to a suburban landscape virtually complete. The road was originally known as Church Road, later as Knock Church Road — in reference to Knock Presbyterian Church, erected in 1874 — and was renamed King's Road in 1901–02 following the accession of King Edward VII.

The congregation of St Columba's traces its origins to mission services held around 1884 in a schoolroom in an old mill near Knock railway station, to the south-west of the present site. In 1886 the Reverend Francis Graham, then Curate of Ballymacarrett, paid for the construction of a temporary corrugated-iron church building on Church Road. Opened for worship on 17 November 1886, the Knock Iron Church was a simple gabled hall with tripartite lancet windows and a bellcote. In 1889 Reverend Graham built a residence for himself — St Columba's House — on a plot immediately to the east; this building remains in place, but the iron church itself was destroyed by the Great Gale of 22 December 1894.

Immediately following the loss of the iron church, the select vestry agreed to raise subscriptions for a permanent building on the same site. Designed by Samuel Patrick Close of Belfast, work had commenced by mid-1895. Due to financial constraints, the building was to be constructed in two phases. The first phase — comprising the chancel, transepts, and a single bay of the nave — was built by Courtney and Company, a local firm based in Rosetta Avenue. It was completed within approximately one year and consecrated by the Bishop of Down and Connor on 13 June 1896, at a cost of over £4,000. Once that debt was cleared, construction of the second phase — extending the nave northwards by a further two bays — began in October 1899 and was completed in June 1900, again by Courtney and Company, at a cost of around £1,300. A tower to the north-western corner that Close had proposed in his original 1896 plan was not built at this stage, the cost of the nave extension having stretched the congregation's resources sufficiently.

In 1902 an organ was installed by Norman and Beard of Norwich at a cost of £726. In 1913 the rectory was built immediately to the south of the church; Reverend Graham's former residence to the east, which had never formally served as a rectory, had passed into private hands in the mid-1890s.

By the 1920s the growing local population prompted calls for a further extension. Following a grant of £2,000 from the General Synod and a fundraising campaign, plans were drawn up in 1930 to lengthen the nave and to add a porch to the east and a tower to the west. These were designed by Richard Close, son of the original architect; but in an ironic parallel with his father's experience, Richard's designs were never fully realised — rising costs meant the intended lofty tower was never completed to its full height. Work on the extension was completed in May 1932. According to the Irish Builder of 2 April 1934, the nave was damaged by fire shortly before that date, though contemporary local newspapers appear to contain no reference to this, and the report of the church's annual General Vestry meeting held the following week made no mention of it. In 1937 major redecoration was carried out, during which the current oak reredos, stalls, and panelling were installed to Richard Close's Celtic Romanesque designs as a memorial to Canon Frederick Austin and his wife.

A church hall was constructed in 1961 on the site of the Rectory tennis lawn at the rear of the site. In 1964 a side chapel — the Lady Chapel — was added to designs by Billy Dornan, a local architect who was a member of the congregation and honorary secretary of the Select Vestry. The organ was renovated at the same time and the new north aisle stained glass window dedicated to Reverend Graham and his wife was installed.

In 1996, to mark the church's centenary, a new choir vestry was built to replace a temporary structure. Designed in a chapter house style by local architect Mr A. Wright, it is a small separate structure connected to the north transept by a new side chapel and cloister. It was completed in time for the centenary celebrations. The most recent works to the church have included repairs to the external stonework, installation of new heating and lighting, creation of the Garden of Rest at the rear, and the refurbishment of the west end interior described above.