Cavehill Methodist Church, 92-114 Cavehill Road, Belfast, Co. Antrim, BT15 5BT

Cavehill Methodist Church is a two-storey rustic red-brick church built in an eclectic modern style between 1955 and 1957, to designs by the Belfast architectural firm Young & Mackenzie. It is an idiosyncratic and relatively late example of the firm's work — Young & Mackenzie were the leading architects to the Presbyterian Church in Ulster and designed very few Methodist churches. The plans were drawn up in 1953 by James Reid Young (1884–1967), son of the firm's original partner Robert Young, who remained a partner until his death in 1967. The only other Methodist churches the firm is known to have designed were one on the Newtownards Road and Springfield Road Methodist Church, which was built at roughly the same time, in 1954.

The church was built to serve a rapidly growing residential area. New suburban housing had been spreading northward through what had been rural land near the city reservoir and Belfast City and District Water Works since 1947, and the local population increase created an urgent need for a place of worship and provision for children in the district. The Cavehill Methodist congregation was originally formed in 1947 and met in Cavehill Preparatory School for a decade before the current building was erected. Memorial stones were laid in 1955, the church was completed in 1957, and it was officially opened on 25 April 1957. The Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956–72) records that the hall to the rear was also built in 1955–57, with both buildings jointly valued at £1,120.

The architectural historian Paul Larmour described the church as "a dumpy towered symmetrical composition in brick with swept roofs, designed in that indeterminate style that was common just after the war, in which old and new were blended together. Probably of modern Dutch or Scandinavian inspiration."

The building has a cruciform plan, with a three-stage hipped-roof tower to the east, a single-storey hipped-roof hall to the southwest, and single- and two-storey flat-roof extensions to the rear. The main body of the church has a gabled natural slate roof, while the hall to the west has a hipped roof with overhanging eaves and semi-circular black clay hip and ridge tiles. The side wings at the east and the tower have swept hipped natural slate roofs with lead rolled ridges and hips. The flat-roofed extensions are plainer. There is a tall square-section chimney to the hall with a concrete coping. Rainwater goods are cast-iron half-round guttering and hoppers discharging to circular downpipes.

The walling throughout is red brick laid to English garden bond on a projecting rustic red plinth. Window openings are square-headed with projecting concrete cills, brick soldier arches with horizontal cut-tile detail above, and stained leaded glazing unless noted otherwise.

The principal elevation faces east and is symmetrical across three bays. The central bay features the distinctive three-stage rectangular-plan tower, flanked by two-storey hipped-roof bays at each end. A projecting single-storey hipped-roof porch sits at the centre of the ground floor, with three windows to the east face and square-headed openings on its north and south faces fitted with double-leaf timber panelled doors — the south door accessed by four steps, the north by a ramp. The porch is flanked by paired windows at the first stage of the tower, with three windows at the second stage. The shallow recessed third stage has simple splayed corner buttresses and a central square-headed opening to each face with diamond-patterned cast stone openwork, flanked by recessed brick panels with stepped brick cills. A copper spike tops the tower. The two end bays have paired windows at ground-floor level and three-part windows at first-floor level.

The north elevation comprises a two-storey hipped-roof bay to the east, a seven-bay wide double-height nave elevation in the centre, and a two-storey flat-roof three-bay elevation to the west. The east bay has paired windows at ground- and first-floor levels. The nave has tall windows. The western section includes a square-headed door opening and a three-part window at ground-floor level in the first bay to the east; the second bay projects slightly and has chamfered corners, with a square-headed door opening at ground-floor level and a three-part window at first-floor level; and the last bay to the west has five windows at both ground- and first-floor levels, plus a square-headed door opening at its west end fitted with a timber panelled door with multi-paned glazing and a fanlight.

The west elevation has a two-storey flat-roof bay to the north and a single-storey eight-bay wide hall elevation below, with three windows to the north bay — wider at the centre — and tall windows to the hall.

The south elevation mirrors the asymmetry of the north: a two-storey hipped-roof bay to the east, a seven-bay wide double-height nave elevation, a projecting single-storey flat-roof bay, and the projecting single-storey south elevation of the hall. The east bay has paired windows at ground- and first-floor levels and is abutted to the west by a single-storey lean-to bay with two windows facing west, plus a first-floor window in the east bay facing west. The nave has tall windows. The single-storey bay has five windows facing east and a projecting doorcase to the east with a square-headed opening fitted with double-leaf sheeted timber doors with glazing, a fanlight, and sidelights; the door opens onto a low platform accessed by a ramp.

Internally, the church retains a fine original interior with panelled walls and original altar furniture.

The church occupies a prominent site fronting onto the west side of Cavehill Road. The grounds include tarmaced parking to the west and south, with lawns and tarmaced pathways and driveways around the building. The site boundary to the east is formed by a dwarf red brick wall with rectangular-section red brick piers capped with concrete copings, topped by plain painted metal railings. Two matching driveways — one to the northeast, one to the southeast — have double gates supported on rectangular-section red brick piers with concrete copings and cut-tile detail to the corners.

The listing covers the church, hall, railings, gates, and boundary walling as a group. The building also has group value with Newington Presbyterian Church on the Limestone Road nearby, another 1950s Young & Mackenzie church designed in a similar idiom.