Mountpottinger Presbyterian Church Hall & Lecture Room, Castlereagh Street, Belfast, Co Antrim

Mountpottinger Presbyterian Church Hall and Lecture Room, Castlereagh Street, Belfast

This is a late Victorian church hall and former lecture room, built in 1893 in a Romanesque style to designs by Belfast architect Thomas Roe, who was active in the city between approximately 1893 and 1901 and also designed Portadown Town Hall in 1889, working on a number of other buildings across Ulster under the partnership name T. & R. Roe. The hall was constructed at a cost of £1,373 2s. 8d., with Campbell & Lowry contracted as builders. It is a gable-ended, six-bay, two-storey building, rectangular in plan, situated directly on Castlereagh Street in east Belfast. It adjoins Mountpottinger Presbyterian Church, a Romanesque-style, six-bay, two-storey building erected in 1869 to the designs of architect William Hastings. The hall has group value with that church.

The building is constructed in red brick laid in Flemish bond with terracotta mouldings throughout. The roof is pitched natural slate with cast-iron ogee gutters and circular downpipes.

The principal elevation faces southwest and is symmetrically arranged with a pilastered façade and decorative eaves detail. Square-headed ground floor windows are surmounted by terracotta pediment drip mouldings; round-headed first floor windows carry a continuous drip moulding. The central bays are recessed and embraced by full-width round-headed arches, containing paired ground floor windows and Palladian-style first floor windows above. There are two sets of main entrance doors, each a double-leaf diagonally sheeted timber door set into a camber-arched opening with chamfered surrounds.

The left gable is four bays deep and surmounted by a diminutive pediment bearing the date "1893", with "LECTURE HALL" inscribed in the frieze below. Its detailing matches the principal elevation: three round-headed Palladian-style first floor windows with continuous drip moulding, square-headed ground floor windows with terracotta pediment drip mouldings, and the same decorative eaves detail. The far left bay is partially abutted by a two-storey section of the church.

The rear elevation faces northeast and is abutted by the 1869 church. The church's principal gable at this end is highly decorative and symmetrically arranged, with raked coping and a string course, brick pilasters surmounted by squat moulded pinnacles, and a single-storey lean-to porch with diminutive side doors flanked by angled buttresses. 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. The left elevation of the church is four bays deep. The right bay continues the front façade treatment and is abutted by a two-storey curved stairwell with decorative machicolations, a conical roof, plain windows, moulded brick reveals, and chamfered stone cills and heads. Drop-corbelled eaves with a cogged course are accompanied by ogee-moulded gutters with downpipes centred on buttresses. The far left bay of the church is partially abutted by a modern flat-roofed extension of no architectural interest. The right elevation of the church hall is very plain with no detailing and is also partially abutted by a modern flat-roofed extension of no architectural interest. Windows throughout the hall are replacement timber casement windows.

The hall sits directly on the street and is a prominent feature in a largely two-storey terraced Victorian and modern residential setting. The site is bounded by paving immediately to the north and southwest sides of the hall. Further terraced streets line the sides, with industrial units located at the northwest end of the site, opposite the hall.

The history of the site is documented through valuation records. The church first appeared in the valuation books in 1869, valued at £180, at which it remained until 1906 when the value was reduced to £160, despite a renovation of the church around 1903 when a new heating system was installed by Watt & Tulloch. The hall was added to the rear of the church in 1893. By the First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland in 1935, the combined value of the church and hall was recalculated at £350. By 1956 this had risen to £790, before being reduced to £630 under the 1957 Rent and Valuation Act, at which it remained until the end of the revaluation in 1972. During the 20th century the congregation continued to grow, making sustained use of the hall, though the immediate area has since been extensively redeveloped, resulting in a decline in the number of churchgoers. The church was listed in 1987, and in 2006 the family membership numbered approximately 185. The hall remains in active use and is of considerable social importance and interest to the local community. Externally it has retained much of its original character and detail, and complements the architectural character of the adjoining church.