Mountpottinger Presbyterian Church, Castlereagh Street, Belfast, County Antrim

Mountpottinger Presbyterian Church, Castlereagh Street, East Belfast

Mountpottinger Presbyterian Church is a double-height, Romanesque-style Victorian Presbyterian church built between 1868 and 1869 to designs by William Hastings (1814–1892), a former Surveyor of Works for the Borough of Belfast who worked in private practice after 1857. At the time he was working on this commission the Irish Builder described him as "architect to the town council". Curved stairwells were added around 1885–1886, reputedly by W.J. Gilliland, and an adjoining rectangular rear hall dated 1893 was designed by Thomas Roe. The church has group value with this adjoining hall. It stands directly on Castlereagh Street and remains in active use as a place of worship.

Origins and Historical Background

The need for a new Presbyterian church in the Ballymacarrett area was first raised by the Reverend Meneely of First Ballymacarrett Presbyterian Church, and construction was sanctioned by the General Assembly in 1865. When the church opened in 1869 it was known as Second Ballymacarrett Presbyterian Church. By 1873 it had been renamed Mountpottinger Presbyterian Church — a change confirmed in the Belfast Street Directories by 1877 — and the carved tympanums above the entrance bearing the inscription "MOUNT-POTTINGER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH" and "ARDENS SED VIRENS" were installed around that time, probably in the 1870s. The church first appeared in the valuation books in 1869, valued at £180.

In 1893 a hall and lecture room was constructed to the rear at a cost of £1,373 2s. 8d., with Campbell and Lowry contracted as builders. Around 1903 the church was renovated and a new heating system was installed by Watt and Tulloch. The church was listed in 1987, and by 2006 family membership stood at approximately 185, reduced from earlier levels as a result of civil unrest and the extensive redevelopment of the surrounding area during the 20th century.

Exterior — The Church

The church is of rectangular plan with a pitched natural slate roof, cast-iron ogee gutters, and circular downpipes. The walls are red brick laid in Flemish bond with ashlar cornice, string, and plinth courses featuring varying open-heart, foliated, and wedge-shaped mouldings.

The principal gable faces northeast and is highly decorative and symmetrically arranged, with raked coping, a string course, and brick pilasters surmounted by squat moulded pinnacles. At ground level there is a single-storey lean-to porch comprising a tripartite entrance: a central gabled door flanked by single-stage decorative moulded buttresses terminated by gablets, and diminished side doors flanked by angled buttresses that break through the eaves and terminate with plain pinnacles. A cogged eaves course runs throughout the porch. The front double-leaf timber panelled doors have deep moulded surrounds and a round-headed archivolt over, with inverted foliated stops. The carved tympanums are noteworthy: those to the left and right depict a bust with foliation, while the central tympanum depicts an open bible with a crest and bears the inscriptions noted above.

The porch is flanked by simple, diminutive round-headed windows with continuous impost moulding, moulded brick jambs, chamfered sandstone cills, and simple moulded arches springing from a wedged cornice course. At first-floor level there are three round-headed windows; the central window is deeply recessed within a narrow breakfront flanked by decorative buttresses that rise above the upper cornice course and are conjoined by a deep projecting segmental-arched canopy. Above the canopy, a brick plinth supports a decorative moulded octagonal pinnacle bearing the date "1869", which breaks through the apex of the gable.

The leaded stained glass round-headed windows across the façade are flanked by ashlar plain pilasters with decorative stiff-leaf capitals and moulded archivolts.

The left elevation is four bays deep. The right bay is a continuation of the front façade and is abutted by the two-storey curved stairwell, which has decorative machicolations, a conical roof, and plain windows with moulded brick reveals and chamfered stone cills and heads. A stepped plain projecting stone string course rises from left to right, with five diminishing square-headed windows whose cills rise in accordance with the internal stair. Five equal-sized round-headed upper windows are separated from the lower windows by a terracotta panel between the two rows. The remaining bays to the left are flanked by buttresses, each bay comprising three square-headed ground-floor windows with brick reveals, a continuous stone cill course, and shared heads; and three round-headed first-floor windows with deep shared stone cills, brick reveals, and round-headed brick heads with projecting key blocks. The eaves feature drop corbelling with a cogged course, ogee moulded gutters, and downpipes centred on the buttresses. The far left bay is partially abutted by a modern flat-roofed extension of no architectural interest. The right elevation of the church matches the left.

Exterior — The Hall

The rear elevation of the church faces southwest and is abutted by the 1893 Romanesque-style, gable-ended, six-bay two-storey hall designed by Thomas Roe, who was active in Belfast between approximately 1893 and 1901 and also designed Portadown Town Hall in 1889, along with a number of other buildings throughout Ulster under the partnership name T. and R. Roe. The hall is built in Flemish bonded red brick with terracotta mouldings.

The principal elevation of the hall faces southwest and comprises a pilastered façade with decorative eaves detail. The ground-floor windows are square-headed and surmounted by terracotta pediment drip moulding; the first-floor windows are round-headed with continuous drip moulding. Recessed central bays are embraced by full-width round-headed arches, with paired ground-floor windows and Palladian-style first-floor windows above. Two sets of double-leaf diagonally sheeted timber doors are set into camber-arched openings with chamfered surrounds. The left gable is surmounted by a diminutive pediment bearing the date "1893", with "LECTURE HALL" inscribed on the frieze below, and its detailing matches the principal elevation. The rear elevation abuts the church. The right gable is very plain with no architectural detailing, and there is a modern flat-roofed extension to its right.

Interior

The church has a relatively well-preserved interior, which retains its architectural detailing largely intact.

Setting

The church stands directly on Castlereagh Street and is a prominent feature in a largely two-storey terraced Victorian and modern residential setting. The front of the site is bounded by robust wrought-iron gates and railings with cast-iron detailing fixed to a sandstone coping; these railings contribute positively to the setting and are integral to the overall character of the church. The paving immediately to the front of the church has been replaced with modern stone paviors. Further terraced streets line the sides and rear of the site, with industrial units adjacent to the hall.