St Michael's Church of Ireland, Craven Street, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT13 IJJ

St Michael's Church of Ireland, Craven Street, Belfast

St Michael's is a free-standing, gable-fronted, double-height red brick Church of Ireland church, designed by Belfast-based architect Samuel P. Close and opened in 1899. The building is rectangular on plan, facing south, with a lean-to porch abutting the west end and a two-stage tower at the east. A modern extension was added to the north around 1910, built in grey engineering brick. The listing covers the church itself, the hall, boundary wall, and railings.

The roof is pitched natural slate with a bellcast over the side aisles, finished with terracotta clay ridge tiles, lead valleys, stone verges and acroteria, and cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on a corbelled brick eaves course. The walls are laid in Flemish bond red brick with a projecting brick plinth course. A continuous sandstone string course runs at sill level, and double-height stepped angle buttresses with offsets and stone weathering punctuate the elevations. Windows throughout are equilateral-arched cusped lancets formed in chamfered brick surrounds with plain stop chamfers and voussoirs, containing leaded stained glass protected externally by reinforced storm glazing, except where noted otherwise.

The gabled south front elevation has a projecting central bay with angle buttresses and a bipartite geometric tracery window, flanked by two smaller tracery windows on each side. At the apex is a datestone inscribed 1898. The left-hand internal angle is enclosed by the single-storey lean-to porch, which is detailed to match the main building. The porch's south face has an equilateral-arched double-inset sandstone door opening with a hood mould and stepped quoins, fitted with a sheeted timber door with iron furniture, opening onto concrete steps and a ramped access. The west wall of the porch contains a single square-headed window. Above the lean-to roof, the exposed left cheek of the projecting gable contains paired, diminished windows. The right-hand internal angle is enclosed by the two-stage tower, which carries a bellcast natural slate pyramidal roof with a copper finial.

The west nave elevation is five bays wide. Four bays to the right each contain three windows lighting the nave. The fifth bay at the left is divided by a smaller angle buttress with an offset and contains a double sheeted timber entrance door surmounted by a single window, with a further single window to the left. A single-storey lean-to oil-tank store sits to the far left. The gabled north chancel elevation has, at its centre, five staged lancet windows with leaded coloured glass and a continuous splayed ashlar sill — these chancel windows have no external storm glazing protection. A brick chimney rises above the left lancet window. To the left, a segmental-headed timber window at ground floor level lights the vestry, with a square-headed window above serving the organ loft. The church is abutted to the right on this elevation by the modern extension. The east nave elevation mirrors the west in its detailing.

The two-stage tower carries a slated spire with a bellcast eaves over a stone eaves cornice. Its south elevation has an equilateral-arched double-inset sandstone door opening with a hood mould and stepped quoins, fitted with a sheeted timber door with iron furniture, and above this a double geometric tracery window at the second stage. Abutting the tower to the east is a double-height circular tower with a semi-conical roof, surmounted at the second stage by a single louvered lancet opening. The circular tower contains a single square-headed window at ground floor and a quadripartite arrangement of four-centred arched windows with sandstone surrounds at the second stage, along with a louvered lancet opening at the north face of the second stage.

Internally, the church retains much of its original fabric and detailing. Four stained glass windows are recorded: two by Clokey and Co., one by W.J. Douglas and Sons, and one unsigned. The character of the building, both inside and out, is defined by a moderate and understated design, free from elaborate decoration. This restraint is characteristic of the disestablished Church of Ireland's approach, which, while informed by the ecclesiological Gothic Revival — following Pugin's proclamation of Gothic as the only true Christian style — tended to omit the more elaborate decorative elements embraced in England.

The church was constructed during the second wave of building promoted by the Belfast Church Extension and Endowment Society, founded in 1863 to provide accommodation for the expanding Church of Ireland congregation in the city. The site is first noted in the Annual Revisions of 1897 to 1905 with no valuation listed, indicating the building was still under construction at that point. The lessor was recorded as Mr James McIntyre and the builder as James Kidd. The 1900 Belfast Revaluations describe the church as new, with a construction cost of £3,000 and a valuation of £145. A number of two-storey properties to the rear, described as old, were included in this initial valuation. By 1910, these had been converted into use as St Michael's Recreation Hall, which was valued at £256 in the second General Revaluation of 1956 to 1972. Alterations were carried out in 1939 by William Taggart, which may account for a subsequent rise in the church's valuation to £552 in the same revaluation. Further external repairs were carried out during the late 20th century.

Samuel P. Close trained under the Belfast firm of Lanyon, Lynn and Lanyon and is noted for designing several churches in Belfast, including St Peter's Church of Ireland and Fisherwick Presbyterian Church.

The church stands on an open urban site to the north of Craven Road, off the Shankill Road. A modern hall has been constructed at the north-west corner of the site, with access to a small car park via original cast-iron gates — with their paint finish removed — supported on brick piers at the south. Railings are supported on a brick plinth wall with a chamfered coping. Two pedestrian cast-iron gates provide access at the south of the main church building. The originally tight urban setting, once surrounded by terraced housing on all sides, has been significantly altered by large-scale redevelopment, with many of the surrounding houses removed.