St Matthias' RC Church, Glen Road, Belfast, Co Antrim

St Matthias' RC Church, Glen Road, Belfast

A rare single-storey church built in 1892 in plain gothic style, distinguished by its corrugated iron cladding which gives it the distinctive appearance of a frontier church of the American Old West. The building was originally constructed as an extension to the Church of Ireland's St Luke's Mission but was never replaced with a more permanent structure due to declining congregation numbers. It was acquired by the Roman Catholic diocese around 1970.

The church sits on the north side of Glen Road in the south-west suburbs of Belfast, with its front gable facing roughly south. The façade is symmetrical, with a relatively small gabled porch at ground level centred on the front elevation. The porch features a pointed arch doorway with timber sheeted door, with modern wheelchair access added. Above the porch is a roundel window with plain glazing set into the main gable. The western façade has three pointed arch windows with double lancet timber frames incorporating quatrefoil tracery. The eastern façade is similar but features three tall, pier-like buttresses, which appear to have been added following structural movement evident in this elevation. Windows to both sides have obscured glazing with small lattice panes of expanded metal tracery.

The rear of the church has a five-sided hipped roof chancel with pointed arch windows set into three of its north-facing sides. A short corridor on the west side links to a small hipped roof vestry added after circa 1960, which has small boarded-up window openings to both east and west elevations and a metal sheeted door to the west side of the corridor.

The main walls are clad in white-painted corrugated iron rising from a short red brick base, which extends only to the main church building. The main roof is also covered in brown-coloured corrugated iron with a slight overhang, pierced barges and finials. At the south end of the roof ridge stands a metal sheet bellcote with splayed base and tall spire topped with a cross finial, likely added when the church passed to the RC diocese.

The church grounds are bordered to the south by a low stone wall with rock-faced finish, featuring simple rectangular gabled piers and simple wrought iron railings interspersed with more ornate wrought iron panels. The vehicle gates are of similar style. Rainwater goods are principally PVC.

A vestry section was added to the rear sometime after circa 1960, and the buttresses were probably added later following the structural movement evident in the eastern façade.