Willowfield Parish Hall, Cregagh Road, Belfast, County Antrim, BT6 8PZ

Willowfield Parish Hall

A detached gable-fronted redbrick parish hall built around 1910 to the designs of architect William John Fennell, Willowfield Parish Hall stands on the west side of Cregagh Road in Belfast, within the grounds of Harding Memorial School. The building is rectangular in plan, facing east, and has group value with the neighbouring school.

The hall was opened by the Lord Primate on 25 February 1911, following which work began on Willowfield National Schools, also designed by Fennell. The building originally provided seating for over 200 people and included a vestry to the rear. It was fitted with gas and central heating, installed by S M Gray, and was built by the contractors Messrs McIntyre Bros. The hall was first recorded on the Ordnance Survey map of 1920–21. In 1912 it entered valuation records at £24, exempted from charges on the guarantee of Canon C W Harding, incumbent of Willowfield Parish Church, that no admission fees would be charged for events. In 1954, the hall became part of the Harding Memorial School property when it was taken over by the Belfast County Borough Education Committee.

The modestly scaled building retains most of its original fabric and detailing. It features a pitched natural slate roof with roll-moulded terracotta ridge tiles, ogee-moulded cast-iron guttering to shaped rafter feet, and cast-iron downpipes. Plain timber barge boards line all gables, with a terracotta finial to the front gable. Applied timber framing with a timber tie-beam carries inscribed lettering reading "WILLOWFIELD PARISH HALL". The redbrick walling is laid in English garden wall bond with a projecting redbrick plinth course.

The main east-facing gable is abutted by a smaller gabled entrance porch with a natural slate roof and lateral redbrick buttresses featuring sandstone offsets. The porch is lit by a group of four pointed-arched window openings formed in moulded sandstone with leaded coloured glazing in the Art Nouveau style. A pointed-arched door opening to the north cheek has a sandstone head with double-leaf vertically-sheeted timber doors and an overpanel, accessed via three concrete steps.

The side elevations have square-headed window openings with moulded redbrick reveals, stone lintels, flush splayed stone sills, and 2/2 timber sash windows with top-hung overlights. The south side elevation features five buttress-like piers with sandstone offsets below eaves level and a pair of square-headed window openings with multi-pane steel casement windows. The rear elevation is abutted by a lower gabled entrance porch, in turn abutted by a lower gabled section, each with replacement timber doors. The north side elevation contains four windows (now boarded up), each flanked by redbrick buttresses with sandstone offsets.

The interior features an impressive double-height space, reflecting the hall's original function as a community gathering place.

The building occupies a modest site with its south elevation fronting onto a small lane and its north elevation fronting onto Dromore Street. Bitumac playing areas lie to the rear and north. The site is enclosed to the street by iron railings on a low plinth wall with matching pedestrian gates supported on octagonal-plan redbrick and sandstone piers. The side elevations are enclosed by redbrick walling and modern fencing. The hall adds to the setting of Harding Memorial School and holds social and cultural importance for the local community.