St. Clement's Church of Ireland, Templemore Avenue, Belfast, County Antrim, BT5 4FR

St. Clement's Church of Ireland

A double-height Tudor Gothic style Church of Ireland built between 1928 and 1930 to designs by architects Blackwood and Jury. The church is located at the junction of Paxton Street and Templemore Avenue on the east side of Belfast.

The building has a barn-style plan form with an adjoining three-stage belfry tower, chancel and side entrance porches. The pitched natural slate roof features a slight incline at eaves level with louvered vents positioned close to clay ridge tiles. The eaves comprise moulded sandstone with replacement uPVC rainwater goods.

The walls are laid in stretcher bond brick with sandstone dressings and a projected plinth. Windows are tripartite with leaded coloured glass, decorative sandstone mullions and transoms, and irregular long-and-short sandstone surrounds with chamfered cills and jambs. The larger windows are multi-paned with Tudor arches, hood mouldings and reticulated tracery. Doors are double-leaf timber panelled with decorative wrought-iron strap hinges, set within moulded sandstone Tudor-arched surrounds.

The principal east elevation is symmetrically composed with a skew-table gable featuring sandstone shoulders, saddle coping, kneelers and an apex stone with gablets. This elevation is abutted by a gable-ended chancel with matching details and a large centrally positioned Tudor-arched window flanked by two-stage set-back buttresses terminated with sandstone gablets with trefoil mouldings. The chancel's left cheek has a single high-level window and a gable-ended abutment at the re-entrant to the tower with a tripartite window to the gable end. The right cheek mirrors the left, except for a hipped roofed entrance porch with chamfered corner, single-leaf door with square-headed surrounds, two single windows to the east face and a single tripartite window to the north. A chimney rises from the ridge level breaking through the eaves, terminated with stepped sandstone detailing and a large octagonal moulded pot.

The south elevation is asymmetrically arranged, five windows wide with single-storey buttresses separating each bay. The left bay is abutted by the three-stage belfry tower with angled buttresses, partially infilled at lower level to create an octagonal clasping buttress. The tower is terminated with a heavily moulded crenellated sandstone parapet comprising moulded quatrefoil panels over a dentiled cornice with projecting gargoyles at the corners. A deep-set Tudor-arched entrance door on the south face has a heavy label embracing the spandrels. The first floor contains single leaded windows to the east, south and west faces, whilst the second storey features bipartite Tudor-arched louvered openings with moulded surrounds and hood moulding with continuing sandstone drip and string courses.

At the re-entrant of the north face of the tower and the left elevation of the nave is a single-storey gable-ended abutment with matching sandstone detailing and a centrally located Tudor-arched window.

The rear gable is symmetrically arranged with matching sandstone dress stone detailing. A centrally located Tudor-arched window with reticulated tracery is flanked by adjoining square-headed windows, further flanked by two-stage buttresses breaking through the coping course. At ground floor on the left is a flat-roofed structure which has been extended to form a corridor linking to the adjacent church hall.

The right elevation matches the left elevation in principle, five bays wide, with the right bay abutted by a slightly projected gable-ended entrance porch with matching sandstone detailing. The Tudor-arched door has long-and-short surrounds and hood moulding with geometric stops, with diminutive single-stage buttresses to the left and right cheeks.

The church runs parallel with the adjacent side street whilst sitting at an angle to the principal road, allowing good views of the front elevation and adjoining tower. This positioning gives the church a distinctive appearance, setting it apart from adjacent buildings. Immediately to the north is Mountpottinger Baptist Church, with modern three-and-a-half storey housing opposite and further modern commercial buildings to the south.