Crescent Church, 6 University Road, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT7 1NH

Crescent Church is a large, two-storey French Gothic Presbyterian church built between 1885 and 1887 to designs by Glasgow architect John Bennie Wilson, located on the east side of University Road. Constructed in rock-faced greyish-beige sandstone with smooth red sandstone dressings and alternating "in-out" quoins, the building has considerable architectural merit and makes a significant contribution to the townscape of this part of Belfast. It was originally built for the Linen Hall Street Presbyterian congregation and was acquired by the Christian Brethren around 1976.

The building is broadly rectangular in plan, with a large two-storey hall wing projecting to the north-east. The main church block has a gabled nave flanked at the front by a tall, partly open bell tower to the north and a smaller stair tower to the south. Both towers are capped with steeply pitched slated roofs — pyramidal on the bell tower, octagonal on the stair tower — that fall just short of qualifying as true spires. All roof sections are slated, with what appears to be Westmoreland slate used on the tower roofs.

FRONT (WEST) ELEVATION

The front elevation is deliberately asymmetrical. At ground floor level, the nave is entered through a large but shallow gabled porch bay. Within this porch is a wide, flat-arched doorway filled with modern plate glass double doors flanked by large plate glass sidelights, and topped with a 1970s mosaic signboard reading "Crescent Church." The doorway sits within a large bevelled pointed arch reveal in red sandstone, with boss mouldings to the reducing archivolt and a large decorative roundel panel flanked by cusped niches in the tympanum. The reveal is flanked by gabled, reducing buttresses with pointed arch and roundel niches in their gables. Two slit recesses appear at the apex of the porch gable, and tiled steps lead up to the door.

The full height of the nave gable is edged with buttresses matching those of the porch, with a further central buttress rising from the ridge of the porch gable itself. Between the porch and the outer buttresses, on each side, is a relatively small recessed pointed arch window, each surmounted by a shallow lean-to roof with a low pierced balustrade of pointed arch openings. Higher up, the gable is dominated by two large twin recesses, each containing three tall, narrow pointed arch windows filled with pictorial stained glass, the middle window of each group being taller than the outer two. Near the apex are three slit recesses, the central one taller than the others, and the gable is finished with a decorative stone finial.

To the north of the nave gable stands the bell tower, which rises to more than one and a half times the height of the nave. Its upper half is largely open. At ground floor level — exposed only to the north and west — the tower has right-angle reducing buttresses. On the west face of the ground floor is a relatively small flat-arched doorway with a modern partly glazed door, above which is a pointed relieving arch; a short staircase with a low wall and railings leads up to it. On the north face of the ground floor is a slightly larger doorway, now blocked with a modern partly glazed screen set within a bevelled reveal similar to the main entrance but with a label moulding with decorative stops rather than boss mouldings; the tympanum contains three cusped slit recesses. At second floor level on the north and west faces there is an arcade of pointed arch recesses, with alternate recesses filled by narrow flat-arched windows. The tall third stage of the tower is exposed on three sides — north, west and east — each face having two high-level slit windows. Above this, the open upper portion of the tower has a pair of very tall narrow cusped openings to each face, each with a splayed base and a tall balustrade or arcade feature rising from it. Between the openings is a plain buttress with a steep pyramidal cap, with slightly broader outer buttresses having gabled heads with cusped recesses and horizontally projecting crocket-like finials. The tower is crowned with a steeply pitched pyramidal slated roof with a lead finial and weathervane, the roof resting on a short base decorated with an arcade of pointed arch niches and octagonal corner pinnacles.

At the south-west corner of the building, set back a few metres from the line of the front gable, is the stair tower: a large but squat two-storey, four-sided projection with a steeply pitched octagonal slated roof. On the west face at ground floor level is a recent partly glazed door set in a reveal similar to that on the north face of the bell tower but with a single cusped recess in the tympanum. On the south face is a narrow pointed arch window. At second floor level, a complete row of narrow flat-arched windows is set in pointed arch reveals.

SOUTH ELEVATION

At the left (west) end is the stair tower projection. Immediately to its right, the stair tower abuts a full-height plain gabled buttress. To the right of that is the long south face of the nave, with five pairs of pointed arch windows in a slightly projecting ground floor zone. At first floor level are four sets of two pointed arch windows, each set separated by a plain pilaster, with a large multi-foil roundel window set between them at a higher level. To the right of these is a further set of windows, but here the two pointed arch windows are markedly taller and the group is set within a large pointed arch recess with a label moulding with decorative stops, itself contained within a large gable with three slit recesses near its apex. At the far right end of the elevation the façade steps back, forming the south face of a gabled chancel projection. At ground floor level here is a shallow lean-to porch with a plain timber sheeted door on its south face set in a bevelled reveal with small pointed arch niches in the tympanum, reached by a short flight of stone steps; a slit window appears on the east face of the porch. At first floor level in this section are three relatively small pointed arch windows.

NORTH ELEVATION

The north elevation follows the same general arrangement as the south, but on the left hand side the large gable is abutted by the large two-storey hall section described below.

EAST ELEVATION

The east face of the nave has a large two-storey gabled chancel projection. This contains a flat-arched sash window at ground floor level and a large multi-foil roundel window at second floor level. A tall narrow chimneystack rises at the right-hand (north) edge of this section. To its right, the gable is abutted by part of the large two-storey hall section.

THE HALL SECTION

A large two-storey section with basement stretches from the north-east corner of the church, containing the hall, offices and ancillary spaces.

Front (west) elevation: This is asymmetrical, comprising a large two-storey gable to the left, a three-sided two-storey tower section in the middle, and a small two-storey flat-roofed section to the right abutting the main church. The entrance is in a wide flat-headed recess at ground floor level of the flat-roofed section, consisting of a large recent partly glazed double door with a large pointed arch fanlight, set in a relatively plain bevelled reveal; the entrance area is tiled, and the flat arch above has recent recessed lighting. The three-sided tower projection immediately to the left of the entrance has a small narrow flat-arched window at ground floor level on its west face and a pair of pointed arch windows at first floor level; it is capped with a tall slated octagonal spire. The large gable to the left has plain edge buttresses at ground floor level, two pairs of large flat-arched two-light windows at ground floor, and two pairs of pointed arch windows with transoms at first floor level, the pairs linked by a dripstone moulding with decorative stops. Three slit openings appear at the gable apex.

North elevation: At the centre is a large two-storey gable matching that on the west elevation, with a date panel to the right at first floor level inscribed "1886" and a tall stone chimneystack rising from the right-hand (west) side of the gable. The remainder of this elevation on either side of the gable is blank.

East elevation: The right-hand side has a large projecting gable similar to that on the west elevation, but with two pairs of windows at ground floor level. To the left of this gable at ground floor level are a plain metal sheeted door to the boiler room and five flat-arched windows of varying size, most with plain sash frames and all fitted with security grilles; beneath the far right window is a small flat-roofed projection in the re-entrant angle where the gable meets the rest of the facade, with small windows on both its east and south faces. At first floor level are two pairs of pointed arch windows flanking a central group of three similar windows, with a single smaller pointed arch window at the far left. The left-hand edge of the elevation is bevelled, with a small narrow flat-arched window on the ground floor of the bevel and a small narrow pointed arch window at first floor level on the narrow south face to the left of it.

GENERAL FABRIC AND SETTING

Practically all roof sections are slated. Stone parapets with finials top the gables throughout, and shaped red clay ridge tiles are used. Rainwater goods appear to have been fully replaced recently with metal components: shaped guttering and square downspouts. A gas pipe has been fixed to the ground floor of the north and east faces of the hall section. Tarmac-surfaced car parking areas lie to the north and south of the building. The church grounds are bounded to the north, south and east by low sandstone walls with wrought iron railings.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The church was built on land that had formerly been part of the garden of Robert Corry, a timber and shipping merchant who developed much of this part of south Belfast from the 1840s onwards. The surrounding area was shaped by the sale of Lord Donegall's Belfast estate in the early to mid 19th century, which opened up the lands south of the town to the professional and business classes. Corry built Upper Crescent in 1846 — an elegantly curving row of three-storey late Regency-style dwellings, possibly with input from architect Charles Lanyon — and Lower Crescent to its north in 1852. Corry's garden to the south, where the church now stands, was temporarily ploughed up during the Great Famine to provide vegetable cultivation for relief of local workers. Further development followed in the 1860s and 1870s, including two large houses designed by William Hastings at the west end of Upper Crescent in 1869, one of which — Crescent House, now the Bank of Ireland — also fronted University Road, and two further houses added in 1878–79. The large sandstone building originally known as Ladies Collegiate and later as Victoria College was added to the west end of Lower Crescent in 1873. The church itself was erected in 1885–87, with a two-storey terrace — now Crescent Gardens — built on the site of smaller garden plots to the east in 1898.

During the first half of the 20th century most of the surrounding properties remained private dwellings, but by 1960 many had been converted to business use or divided into flats. By the early 21st century none remained in private residential occupation. In the mid-1990s three of the 1860s–70s houses at the west end of Upper Crescent were demolished and replaced with a modern office block. In 2000 the railway cutting to the south of Lower Crescent — originally cut in the late 1860s along the line of an old water course — was built over as part of a new development.