Crumlin Road Presbyterian Church, 292 Crumlin Road, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT13

Crumlin Road Presbyterian Church is a gabled red-brick Presbyterian church designed by David Wright Boyd and dated 1953, built on the site of an earlier church on the south side of Crumlin Road at its junction with Tennent Street in north Belfast. It was dedicated and opened on 18th September 1954, replacing a predecessor destroyed by German bombing on the night of 15th–16th April 1941. The building is recorded only and is not listed, though it and the neighbouring Mitchell Memorial Hall share a similar architectural character and are of some interest in the locale. However, both are of a late date and are not among the best examples of their type.

Origins and History

A congregation was established in this part of Belfast in 1867 by Deane Knox Mitchell, who was ordained in 1869 and became the church's first minister. Mitchell had been sent by the Presbytery of Belfast to serve the large numbers of workers arriving from rural areas, drawn by the wages offered by the new linen mills — Ewarts, Becks and Bloomfield — which were booming as a consequence of demand created by the American Civil War of 1861–63. A church school costing £500 was first built, with Robert Young of Young and Mackenzie as architect, but as numbers grew the congregation began meeting in the schoolroom of the nearby Ewart's linen mill while a permanent church was constructed. This new church was formally opened on Sunday 12th May 1872, nearing completion at that point. It was designed by Young and Mackenzie, built by contractors John Lowry and Son at a cost of £2,097, of which roughly half had been subscribed at the time of opening, and was constructed in Scrabo sandstone in the free Gothic style. The building appears on the large-scale map of Belfast dating from 1883–84, with a small National School shown to the rear.

The church buildings were completely destroyed in the German air raid of 15th–16th April 1941, after which the congregation met in the nearby Edenderry School for thirteen years. The replacement church, designed by David Wright Boyd, was built off the foundations of the earlier building and dedicated on 18th September 1954, providing accommodation for 650 worshippers. The design also incorporated a minor hall, committee rooms, and a recreation hall to the rear. Internally, the ceiling was covered with acoustic tiles; internal fittings and furnishings were of oak; porches and staircases were finished in terrazzo; and windows were of stained glass, including three memorial windows in the west front. The building was heated by radiators and radiant panels, and the organ was placed in a free-standing console beside the choir stalls. David Boyd is also known for supervising the building of Clough Williams-Ellis's First Church of Christ Scientist in University Avenue, and is otherwise better known for domestic work and for a number of schools designed in the late 1950s and 1960s.

The church subsequently suffered further bomb damage on several occasions, most significantly in 1972 when a car bomb destroyed all the windows. Some replacement fabric is evident as a result, most notably the fenestration, though the building otherwise retains much of its original character. The congregation today numbers around 300 families.

Exterior

The building is of rectangular plan with a pitched natural slate roof with blue-black angled ridge tiles and raised sandstone verges to the gables, and a shallow copper pyramidal roof to the tower. Rainwater goods are plastic. The walling is Flemish-bonded red brick on a rock-faced and ashlar sandstone plinth — possibly fabric retained from the original church — with red sandstone dressings. Windows throughout are round-headed replacement leaded-and-stained glass in plain brick reveals with projecting concrete sills, arranged in groups of two or three; those to the fourth stage of the tower sit in moulded sandstone reveals with a keyblock and oblique sills.

The hall is abutted to the northeast by a single-storey entrance vestibule, with a square tower to the north corner and a lower two-storey stairwell bay to the east corner. The southwest side is fully abutted by the adjoining church hall (Mitchell Memorial Hall). The principal elevation faces northeast and comprises a central gable flanked by the stairwell bay to the left and the tower to the right. The gable has three staged windows and is abutted at ground floor by the flat-roofed entrance vestibule, which is lit by an arcade of five windows. A granite plaque is inscribed: "THIS STONE WAS LAID ON / 14TH FEBRUARY 1953 BY / MRS MARY K. ENTRIGAN / ELDEST DAUGHTER OF THE LATE / REVEREND DEANE KNOX MITCHELL / FIRST MINISTER OF THE CHURCH / BUILT ON THIS SUTE IN 1972 AND / DESTROYED BY ENEMY ACTION ON 15TH-16TH APRIL 1941".

The stairwell bay projects slightly and has three windows over recessed double twelve-panel timber doors with a metal fanlight set within a moulded Romanesque-style sandstone surround. The northeast elevation has a group of two windows over a group of three, with entrance doors of the same form as those at the stairwell bay, accessed via two concrete steps. The northwest elevation has two sets of paired windows over an oculus. The southeast elevation has three windows over two oculi set into sandstone reveals, and five evenly spaced windows to the main face. The southwest elevation is fully abutted by the adjoining hall. The top stage of the tower is chamfered, set back with concrete offsets, and lit by a window to each face.

Setting

The church is set back slightly from the street and enclosed by a low red-brick wall topped by red sandstone coping and metal railings. At the Crumlin Road entrance there is a set of tall iron latch-gates. An enclosed yard to the northeast is accessed from Langley Street via iron gates with square iron piers topped by decorative scrolled and finialed metal caps, supporting what appear to be the original gates.