Christchurch Centre of Excellence, College Square North, Belfast, Co. Antrim, BT1 6AS

Christ Church, now the Christchurch Centre of Excellence, is a free-standing symmetrical double-height Greek Revival former Church of Ireland church built around 1833 to the designs of William Farrell (d.1851), a Dublin-based architect who served as engineer to the ecclesiastical province of Armagh from 1823 to 1843 and who predominantly designed church buildings throughout Ireland during that period. The building sits on a corner site on College Square North, with its west side elevation fronting onto Durham Street, and now forms part of the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. It was gutted by fire in 1996 and converted for educational use in 2003 by the Belfast Buildings Preservation Trust and the Royal Belfast Academical Institution.

The church is rectangular on plan and faces north. Its hipped natural slate roof has black clay ridge tiles and a lower-pitched roof to a rear gabled projection. Replacement ogee-moulded iron guttering sits on a sandstone ashlar eaves course with iron box hoppers and downpipes. The front elevation is built in sandstone ashlar; the remaining elevations are in hand-made red brick laid in Flemish bond with a sandstone ashlar plinth course and frieze.

The symmetrical three-bay, two-storey front elevation features a distyle Ionic portico in antis — that is, two giant Ionic order columns set between projecting walls called antae, here flanked by Doric antae, with corner piers framing the entire elevation. The portico carries an entablature with a lead-lined blocking course over cornice, and the walls within the portico are ruled-and-lined lime rendered. The central doorcase has a plain triangular pediment, lugged architrave surrounds, replacement double-leaf timber panelled doors, and an overlight. The side entrances also have lugged architraves with plain frieze and cornice. Window and door openings on the front elevation are square-headed with sandstone architrave surrounds and replacement 6/6 timber sash windows.

On the side elevations, window openings are set within shallow double-height round-headed recesses with moulded archivolts rising from a continuous impost moulding. The upper-level openings are round-headed and the lower-level openings are segmental-headed, all with sandstone sills and multi-pane steel windows. The east side elevation is five windows wide, with a single segmental-headed door opening at the south end fitted with double-leaf timber panelled doors and a louvred overpanel. The west side elevation mirrors the east.

The south rear elevation is abutted by a full-height gabled projection and flanked by flat-roofed projections added around 2003. It features a double-height round-headed glazed entrance with a sandstone ashlar surround, a multi-pane steel window with an incorporated fanlight, and double-leaf timber panelled and glazed doors with sidelights. The flanking blocks have plain sandstone parapet and cornice with pairs of diminutive segmental-headed window openings fitted with 2/2 timber sash windows.

The site is enclosed by replacement iron railings on a low red brick plinth wall with matching gates. Stone paving covers the front area, with cobblelock to the side and rear. A rear entrance opens onto a raised paved platform with three steps and a universal access ramp.

The church was built to serve the poorer class of Protestants in the area. Its construction was funded by a £2,000 grant from the Board of First Fruits and £3,000 raised by public subscription. Hardy's 1836 account described it as a plain edifice with a cut stone front and Ionic colonnade, with the other parts in brick with windows in recesses ornamented with circular architraves, providing seating for 1,000 persons on the ground floor and a gallery accommodating over 600. The church was opened in July 1833 and an adjoining schoolhouse was added to the rear between 1833 and 1836. The Townland Valuation of around 1830 recorded the value of the new church, exempt from taxation, at £140, and by Griffith's Valuation of 1860 the church, schoolhouse, and sexton's apartments were jointly valued at £190.

The church was built for the Reverend Dr Thomas Drew, the first perpetual curate of the parish from 1833 to 1859, and father of the architect Sir Thomas Drew, who was responsible for the construction of St Anne's Cathedral. Christ Church was among the first so-called free churches in Belfast, accommodating parishioners too poor to rent pews — a notable contrast with contemporaries such as St Anne and St George's Church, which could accommodate only six poor parishioners despite the Church of Ireland population of Belfast standing at over 16,000 at the time.

A major renovation was carried out between 1874 and 1878 by William Batt (d.1910), a Belfast-based architect. Batt enlarged the chancel, removed the original flat-roof ceiling and added a new cornice, altered the original windows, and installed a new three-tiered pine pulpit with separate levels used by the minister at different stages of the service. During this period an impressive bas-relief memorial to Elizabeth Helen Lanyon, wife of the Victorian architect and engineer Charles Lanyon, was installed; it was designed by Samuel Ferres Lynn (1834–1876), a Belfast-based sculptor, brother of architect William Henry Lynn, and a pupil of Charles Lanyon. The east window, since lost, was installed by Samuel Evans of Birmingham, commissioned around 1870. Following this renovation the church's valuation rose to £220. By the Belfast Revaluation of 1900 it had increased only slightly to £230; the sexton's apartments no longer appeared in the valuation at that point, suggesting they had been removed during the 1874–78 works. The schoolhouse to the rear was demolished between the 1938 and 1959 editions of the Ordnance Survey map.

The church celebrated its centenary in 1933 and survived the heavy bombardment of the Smithfield area during the 1941 Belfast Blitz. However, during the Troubles it was repeatedly targeted in arson and bomb attacks, sustaining no fewer than eleven bomb blasts and two serious arson attacks between the 1960s and around 1985. By 1985 the congregation had dwindled and the building's condition was poor, with fractured or rendered stonework and boarded-up windows. An interior restoration undertaken around 1985 repaired damage to the nave and chancel, though by that time the Lanyon memorial had been badly vandalised, with the fingers and toes of the sculpture smashed. The church was listed at category B+ in 1979. It was forced to close in June 1993 and was subsequently put up for sale.

The Royal Belfast Academical Institution purchased the former church in 1996 for £75,000, but in the same year a further arson attack left it a shell. Initially intended for demolition, it was saved by the Belfast Buildings Preservation Trust, which undertook an extensive restoration funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, with Consarc Design Group overseeing the conversion scheme. Work began in 2001 and was completed in 2003, when the building was reopened by Prince Charles as a computing library and information centre. The conversion included the insertion of a new floor at gallery level, creating a two-storey interior. Although the original pine pulpit has been lost, the bas-relief memorial to Elizabeth Helen Lanyon has been refitted with a new marble frame. Original features including the timber ceiling and the small-pane cast iron windows to the rear have been restored.