The Cathedral Church of St. Anne, Donegall Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 2HB

The Cathedral Church of St. Anne

This free-standing triple-height gable-fronted limestone church stands on Donegall Street in Belfast, facing west onto Writers Square. It is a Grade A listed building of significant architectural importance.

The original church on this site was erected around 1775. The present cathedral was erected in 1904 to the designs of Thomas Drew and William Henry Lynn in the Hiberno-Romanesque style. The building has been substantially extended and modified over the subsequent decades, making it a complex structure reflecting evolving liturgical needs and architectural fashions.

The main body of the church is cruciform on plan. A west front was added around 1927 to the designs of Charles Nicholson. A Baptistery was added to the south aisle around 1923 to the designs of W.H. Lynn, and a Chapel of the Holy Spirit was added to the north aisle around 1932 to the designs of Charles Nicholson. A central crossing was added around 1925 to the designs of Peter McGregor Charmers. The eastern apse and ambulatory were added around 1958, the south transept around 1974, and the north transept around 1981, all to the designs of John MacGeagh. In 2007 a 40 metre steel spire was installed at the crossing to the designs of Robert Jamison and Colin Conn.

The cathedral features steeply pitched natural slate roofs with leaded ridges and lead finials throughout. The walling is consistently limestone ashlar with stepped and moulded plinth courses and shallow buttresses flanking the nave windows. Round-headed window openings are set within shallow round-headed panels with flush splayed sills, hood mouldings with label blocks, and leaded stained glass windows with weather glazing.

The west front is the most elaborate elevation. It comprises a triple-height central gable framed by octagonal towers with lower screen walls fronting the north and south aisles, also terminated by octagonal towers. The entire west front is abutted by a triple portal entrance. The octagonal towers have slender openings to alternating sides and are surmounted by diminutive arcaded drums with conical stone roofs. The west gable contains a central round-headed window opening with compound surround rising from a diminutive arcaded balustrade having a stiff-leaf course below spanning the entire gable and towers. The gable has decorative moulded coping and is surmounted by a Celtic cross. Below the balustrade is a trio of round-headed window openings with clustered colonettes supporting stepped heads and carved figures to the spandrels. The outer lower towers terminate screen walls to the side aisles, each having a blind arcaded parapet with saddleback coping and an oculus below housing a sexfoil stained glass window.

The triple portal entrance comprises a larger central projection flanked by lower side projections, each with an elaborate round-headed door opening. The portal appears to have flat roofs hidden behind parapet walls with off-set stone coping. The principal central entrance is deeply set with five slender colonettes and foliate capitals clustered into the splayed surround, supporting a continuous fluted frieze and impost moulding in turn supporting stepped and carved head. A bipartite square-headed door opening set deep within the doorcase contains hardwood doors with decorative copper panels and hinges, framed by fluted Corinthian piers supporting a nail-head lintel inscribed "He Shall Reign For Ever And Ever". The elaborately carved stone tympanum represents the "Triumph and Peace and Righteousness". The left entrance comprises a square-headed door opening with foliate carved surround having a copper door and overpanel, set within a round-headed opening with compound colonettes and capitals supporting a stepped head and carved stone tympanum depicting the Crucifixion and inscribed below "He That Loseth His Life Shall Save It". The right entrance comprises a square-headed door opening with Arabesque carved surround inscribed "O Grave Where Is Thy Victory" and bronze gates, set within a round-headed opening with compound colonettes and capitals supporting a stepped head and framing a carved stone tympanum. All entrances open onto a stone paved platform accessed by six steps with painted iron railings. Tapered octagonal stone lamp standards with elaborate bronze lanterns flank the stepped entrance. Curved stone wall and iron railings extend from either end of the front elevation to the street, terminated by large octagonal stone piers surmounted by conical finials.

The north side elevation is abutted by a double-height north aisle, the Chapel of the Holy Spirit to the west, and a full-height north transept with Celtic cross to the east. The Chapel of the Holy Spirit is a symmetrical double-height accretion built in Portland limestone ashlar having a steeply hipped slate roof with lead finials set behind a corbelled out parapet wall with cast-iron rainwater goods. It contains diminutive round-headed window openings with colonettes, billet mouldings, stained glass and latticed windows. The north transept houses the Regimental Chapel and has a large square window opening with stone transoms and mullions framing nine windows each glazed with nine panes of coloured glass. The cheeks of the transept advance forward to frame a giant stone Celtic cross fronting the transept with iron railings enclosing the base.

The eastern apse and ambulatory were added in 1958, extending the body of the church as a five-sided canted apse with a single-height responding ambulatory. Two square-plan towers rise above the parapet framing the apse, with hipped roof set behind corbelled parapet with off-set coping and series of loop-holes. A lean-to slate roof covers the ambulatory. Stepped buttresses frame all planes with round-headed window openings on continuous splayed sill courses having continuous hood mouldings and stained glass windows.

The south side elevation is abutted by a double-height south aisle, the Baptistery to the west, and a full-height south transept to the east. The transept houses the Chapel of Unity and is built in pale Portland limestone ashlar having a hipped slate roof behind parapet with various carved mouldings, string courses and pilaster strips including a cross motif to the upper level. Round-headed window openings to the ground floor have splayed surrounds, hood mouldings and stained leaded glass windows. A diminutive semi-circular plan baptistery with conical stone roof and iron trim adjoins this elevation. The limestone ashlar walling has a stepped moulded plinth course seamless with the south aisle elevation, featuring three round-headed window openings with roll-moulded surrounds, flush splayed sills and stained leaded glazing. Below the eaves is a blind colonnade of squat colonettes having stiff-leaf and Romanesque capitals.

The crossing is enclosed within a natural slate clad cubic structure housing a suspended stainless steel tapered spire. Single-span natural slate roofs cover the north and south aisles, set behind limestone ashlar parapet walls having corbelled courses and decorative box hoppers and downpipes breaking through.

The cathedral is located on an island site bound to the north by Academy Street, to the east by Exchange Street, and to the south by Talbot Street. It sits adjacent to the University of Ulster and at the north edge of the Cathedral Quarter with a public park to the north. The entire site is enclosed by steel railings dating from around 1990 on stone walls with matching steel gates. The ground is laid out in granite setts to the south and east.