Crumlin Road Presbyterian Church, Mitchell Memorial Hall, Tennant Street, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT13 3GD

Mitchell Memorial Hall, Tennant Street, Belfast

A gabled two-storey three-bay red-brick Presbyterian church hall designed by David Wright Boyd and dated 1954, located on the east side of Tennant Street in west Belfast. The building stands to the northeast of Crumlin Road Presbyterian Church, with which it shares group value.

The hall is rectangular on plan with shallow breakfronts to the northwest and a two-storey L-shaped linking block connecting it to the adjoining church. The pitched roof is natural slate with blue and black angled ridge tiles and raised sandstone verges, with rainwater goods concealed behind a sandstone parapet and plastic downpipes.

The walls are constructed of Flemish-bonded red brick on a rock-faced and chamfered ashlar sandstone plinth, with red sandstone dressings. The gabled front faces northwest with a wide central bay flanked by shallow breakfronts. The central bay contains three large staged windows at first-floor level above an arcaded group of five windows to the ground floor. Two inscribed granite plaques on the front read "MITCHELL / MEMORIAL HALL / 1954" and "THIS STONE WAS UNVEILED / ON 18TH SEPTEMBER 1954 BY / SAMUEL JOHN GRAHAM / THE ORIGINAL BUILDING WAS / DESTROYED BY ENEMY ACTION ON / 15TH 16TH APRIL 1941". The flanking breakfronts each contain a window at both floors.

Windows throughout are round-headed metal-framed leaded lattice lights in plain reveals with brick heads and projecting sandstone sills, with square-headed four and three-light metal casements to the southeast elevation. The two-storey linking block to the far left is two bays wide, with the left bay projecting slightly and containing three windows at each floor. The right bay features an entrance with recessed original double-leaf twelve-panelled timber doors with a metal fanlight in a Romanesque-style moulded surround, accessed via two concrete steps and a ramp with metal handrail.

The southeast elevation has irregularly arranged window openings at ground and first-floor levels. The eastern linking bay comprises two flat-roof blocks: the left block projects and has a window at each floor; the right block has an exposed northwest section with small casement windows at each floor and a double-leaf twelve-panelled timber door to the ground floor, surmounted by a concrete canopy and accessed by four concrete steps. A rendered lean-to shed with an artificial slate roof and double-leaf timber-sheeted doors is attached to the right block. The southwest elevation has eight window openings to each floor, diminished at first-floor level, with two smaller square-headed openings at ground floor to the right.

The building retains much of its original character with plain detailing and tall round-headed openings intact, though it is of late date and not among the best examples of its type.

The hall was built to replace a school building on the site that was destroyed during a German air raid on 15th and 16th April 1941. The congregation of Crumlin Road Presbyterian Church, established in 1867, had previously occupied the site. The original church, built in 1872 to designs by Young & Mackenzie in the free Gothic style of Scrabo sandstone, was destroyed in the same bombing. A replacement church building opened on 18th September 1954, providing accommodation for 650 worshippers alongside a minor hall, committee rooms, and a recreation hall to the rear. The architect David Boyd is otherwise better known for domestic work and schools designed in the late 1950s and 1960s, having previously supervised the building of Clough Williams-Ellis's First Church of Christ Scientist in University Avenue.

The church and hall suffered bomb damage on several occasions after reopening, notably in 1972 when a car bomb destroyed all windows. The congregation today numbers around 300 families.

The hall is situated in a residential area to the west side of Tennant Street, abutting Crumlin Road Presbyterian Church to the northeast and surrounded by nineteenth and twentieth-century terraced housing. It is set back slightly from the street and laid with concrete to front, enclosed with red-brick walling topped with sandstone coping and metal railings. The entrance has metal latch gates. An enclosed yard to the northeast is accessed via Langley Street through iron gates with square iron piers topped with decorative scrolled and finialled metal caps supporting the original gates.