Alexandra Presbyterian Church, 80 York Road, Belfast, BT15 3HF

Alexandra Presbyterian Church is a double-height red brick Gothic Revival church built between 1895 and 1897 to designs by the Belfast architectural partnership Young & Mackenzie — described by the Dictionary of Irish Architects as the most successful architectural practice in Belfast, the leading architects for the Presbyterian Church in the north-east, and recipients of some of the most important commercial commissions in the city. The firm was formed by Robert Young and John McKenzie around 1867. The church stands on a prominent corner site at York Road and Castleton Street, in the townland of Skegoneill, and remains in use as a church today.

The congregation was established by the General Assembly in 1892 as Belfast's 54th Presbyterian congregation, originally known as Castleton. Before the current building was erected, the congregation met in a corrugated iron temporary church — an "Iron Hall" — on the site of what became the Knowles Memorial Hall. The memorial stone of the current church was laid on 12th May 1895, and the building was completed in 1897. Thomas McMillan of Ormeau Avenue was the contracted builder. The church was built in what the Presbyterian Historical Society describes as 15th-century Gothic style, using quality Belfast red perforated brick with red sandstone dressings and a Bangor blue slate roof. The Annual Revisions set its rateable value at £169.

The plan is rectangular, laid on an east-to-west axis, with a three-stage square-plan tower to the south-east. A two-storey gabled hall was added to the west in 1928, and there are single and two-storey flat-roofed extensions to the north-west. When first constructed, the tower carried a spire reaching 125 feet in height. The main body of the church is closely related in design to McQuiston Presbyterian Church, a building of the same period and also by Young & Mackenzie.

The roof is pitched natural slate with angled black clay tiles and projecting eaves. Rainwater is handled by uPVC ogee guttering discharging to circular downpipes. The brick walls are laid in English garden wall bond with red sandstone dressings.

The principal elevation faces east. The central gabled double-height section features paired Tudor-arched door openings at ground floor level, with engaged stone columns carrying floriated capitals that support stone Tudor arches with moulded hoods. The doors are double-leaf, square-headed, glazed, and sheeted in timber, opening onto a raised platform accessed by stone steps with a painted metal balustrade. Above, at first floor level, is a large five-part perpendicular tracery window with stone dressings, stained leaded glazing, and a continuous hood mould. A string course at sill level incorporates a decorative band of terracotta detailing. To the south end of this elevation rises the three-stage tower, which has three-stage diagonal buttresses. The first stage carries a Tudor-arched two-part trefoil window with a splayed stone sill and moulded hood; the second stage has small lancet windows; and the third stage has two recessed two-part pointed-arch windows. The tower is crowned by a battlemented parapet with pinnacles to hexagonal corner turrets. To the north end of the principal elevation is a two-storey bay with single-stage diagonal buttresses, two round-arched windows with stained leaded glazing at ground floor level, and a single trefoil window at first floor level, all with splayed stone sills.

The south elevation comprises the tower at the east end — matching the description above — the double-height five-bay south aisle, and the two-storey gabled hall to the west. The aisle bays have pointed-arch windows with splayed stone sills and replacement uPVC casement windows with stained leaded glazing, a continuous moulded hood, and a decorated terracotta band below the eaves. The bays are separated by shallow pilasters and single-stage buttresses. The projecting two-storey three-bay gabled hall to the west has raised stone verges and a shallow central projection with a segmental-headed door opening in artificial stone dressings, fitted with a double-leaf modern timber sheeted door with fanlight. Above this is an artificial stone dentilled band. At first floor level a pointed-arch shallow recess contains three lancet windows with herringbone brick detailing over them and a brick hood mould, with bronze raised lettering on a shallow projecting stone band above and a circular shallow recess at high level in the gable. The outer bays at ground floor level have circular shallow recesses, and pointed-arch windows with artificial stone sills. Memorial stones are built into the red brick walling at low level.

The west elevation is two storeys and seven bays wide. The southernmost bay has a lancet window and raised parapet. The remaining bays have square-headed window openings with projecting stone sills and flush stone lintels fitted with uPVC casement windows. The northernmost bay has a flat roof.

The north elevation consists of a two-storey flat-roofed extension to the west, the recessed double-height four-bay north aisle abutted on the north by a single-storey flat-roofed extension, and a projecting two-storey gable to the south. The extensions have square-headed openings. The aisle bays have pointed-arch windows with splayed stone sills and replacement uPVC casement windows with stained leaded glazing, a continuous moulded hood, and a decorated terracotta band below the eaves, with shallow pilasters and single-stage buttresses separating the bays. The projecting gable has round-arched window openings with splayed stone sills and angled single-stage buttresses.

The church stands on a narrow site enclosed by modern red brick walling to the east and south with artificial stone coping topped by metal railings with pike heads. There is a double metal gate to the east supported on metal standards and rectangular-section red brick piers, a smaller double gate to the north-west, and a single gate to the south on rectangular-section red brick piers. Metal fencing runs to the west. The ground is finished in tarmac and paving.

The church's history was significantly shaped by the Belfast Blitz of April and May 1941, when the York Road area was heavily bombed and the building received a direct hit. The original 125-foot spire became structurally unstable and was demolished. On 1st January 1942 the Castleton congregation merged with that of York Street Presbyterian Church — a classical building of 1839 with a pediment on four Doric columns, completely destroyed in the bombing — to form Alexandra Presbyterian Church. The combined congregation held services in the Knowles Memorial Hall until the repaired church reopened on 11th June 1944. As part of the restoration, the demolished spire was replaced by the four corner turrets now seen on the tower. The large tracery window above the main entrance was subsequently converted into a War Memorial window, dedicated to members of the congregation who died in both World Wars, and unveiled on 19th September 1954. The current communion table was added in the late 1940s and the church organ in 1952.

The red brick church hall to the rear, constructed in 1928, was named the Knowles Memorial Hall in commemoration of the Reverend James Knowles, Castleton's first minister. It was reopened in 1966 after major renovation. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the combined value of the church and hall was assessed at £270, rising to £900 by the end of the Second Revaluation (1956–72).

In 1976 the church was badly damaged by a bomb explosion outside the building and was subsequently repaired. A further major renovation costing £250,000 took place in 2005, which included the installation of stained glass windows dedicated to the congregation's Girl Guide and Boys' Brigade companies. The congregation currently stands at approximately 350 families.