Ulster Bank, (Former Methodist Church), 11-16 Donegall Square East, Belfast, BT1 5UB, County Antrim

Ulster Bank (Former Methodist Church), 11-16 Donegall Square East, Belfast

This building is a Neo-Classical former Methodist Church, built around 1846 to the designs of architect Isaac Farrell. It comprises an attached symmetrical pedimented two-storey stucco-fronted structure with a prostyle hexastyle portico (six Corinthian columns across the front). The church was largely demolished around 1990, with only the pedimented façade and backing wall preserved and incorporated into a modern office development completed around 1999. The remaining portico now serves as a decorative temple front on Donegall Square, standing as a record of this important site and the Methodist Church's history in Belfast.

The façade features painted stuccoed walling with a full-span modillioned pediment and plain tympanum. The ground floor is channel rusticated with a guilloche platband at first floor sill level. Six Giant order Corinthian columns with corresponding Corinthian pilasters rest on raised pedestals fronting the pavement. Square-headed window openings on the first floor have architrave surrounds and cornices supported on console brackets. Round-headed window openings occupy the end bays at ground level, fitted with decorative steel windows with margin lights. The original double-leaf varnished doors with raised-and-fielded panels and matching rectangular overpanels survive to the central arch, though other doors have been replaced with glass. A groin-vaulted transverse porch spans the three central arches with a double-height glazed entrance porch at the centre. A square-headed door opening to the north wing features an architrave surround and pediment supported on console brackets, with original double-leaf timber panelled doors. The pediment has a lead-lined roof with a single cast-iron hopper and downpipe to the north wing. Replacement granite paving lies within the portico, and the entire façade is enclosed by decorative cast-iron railings with matching iron piers and gates. Windows are replacement powder-coated steel-framed with square and round-headed openings.

The building occupies the east side of Donegall Square, overlooking Belfast City Hall, and is now abutted on all sides by modern office developments which house the headquarters of the Ulster Bank.

Historically, the Donegall Square Methodist Church replaced an earlier Methodist meeting house built around 1806 on the same site, which itself had replaced the first Methodist church founded in nearby Fountain Street in 1787. The 1806 meeting house was a simple square-plan building capable of seating 800 people and valued at £44 in the 1830s Townland Valuation. As the congregation grew, a larger church was required. Alderman William McConnell, who contributed £1,500 towards construction costs, laid the foundation stone on 2 July 1846, and the church opened in June 1847. The building was designed by Dublin architect Isaac Farrell, who created several Methodist churches in Dublin and Coleraine in "a very solid classical form". A rare 18th-century Snetzler organ from Armagh Cathedral was installed in 1849, but on 2 September that year, fire destroyed the church interior. The building was completely rebuilt, except for the portico façade, by original contractor James Carlisle in 1850. The square-plan church behind the portico could seat 1,500 people, with the basement accommodating up to 1,000 children for Sunday school. The interior featured six bays with two aisles separating box pews, a large gallery on three sides, and a pulpit and wall-mounted organ pipes dominating the fourth wall. Originally, low wings connected the main portico to adjacent buildings, one of which remains. Renovation and the addition of a new organ by Hogg & Sons was undertaken in 1910 under the supervision of architect James St John Phillips. The church was listed in Griffith's Valuation (1859-60) at a value of £200 and was captioned as "Methodist Chapel" on the 1864 map of Belfast. The church closed in the early 1990s and was completely demolished except for the façade. The entrance steps were subsequently removed, and the façade now functions as the frontage to a large modern office development. The building represents the last classically designed church constructed in Belfast, and its restrained classical frontage remains "an essential component of the square's streetscape".