Nelson Memorial Presbyterian Church, Annsboro Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT13 2PH

Nelson Memorial Presbyterian Church, Annsboro Street, Belfast

This is a free-standing, classically styled Presbyterian church built around 1895 to designs by Belfast architect William J. Gilliland, with a lecture hall added to the rear in 1898 by Vincent Craig. The building is of considerable architectural, aesthetic and historic interest: it represents a late and deliberate return to Presbyterian classicism at a time when Gothic styles had dominated church design for much of the 19th century. It was erected in memory of the Reverend Isaac Nelson (1809–1888), a prominent religious and political figure, funded by a donation from his sister.

The church occupies the centre of Nelson Square, just off the Shankill Road. It is bounded to the north and west by mild steel railings set on a brick plinth wall, with paved walkways around the building and car parking to the south, accessed through mild steel gates. Terraced housing closes in to the east and south, reflecting the rapid population growth of the mid-to-late 19th century. Before the church was built, the site had been occupied by a starch works.

The building is rectangular on plan, facing north, and is double-height throughout. It has four aisles, with four stairwells giving access to the gallery — two at the front and two at the rear — and a double vestibule and porch at the north. The roof is pitched natural slate with blue-black clay ridge tiles, lead valleys, and replacement uPVC ogee rainwater goods carried on a corbelled brick eaves course. There is a raised curved parapet wall at the south with sandstone coping.

The principal north-facing entrance façade is the showpiece of the design: a symmetrical, pedimented composition in red sandstone ashlar, set on a projecting plinth with a continuous string course at pedestal base level and at first-floor sill and window-head level. Sandstone pedestals support paired Giant Order pilasters with Corinthian capitals, rising to an architrave and a dentilled pediment with plain modillions and a cyma recta cornice. The frieze and tympanum of the pediment are left blank. Balustrade parapets flank the central breakfront, with corner dies at either end. At the centre of the breakfront, paired six-panel double entrance doors are set within round-arched openings with projecting moulded keyblocks and archivolts, surmounted by a recessed carved sandstone lettering panel reading "NELSON MEMORIAL CHURCH". Above this are three round-arched windows, the central one larger than those to either side. The cheeks of the central projecting bay each contain a square-headed opening with a chamfered surround at pedestal base level, and there is one opening to either side of the pedimented breakfront at first-floor level, each over a lugged blind panel inset with a roundel.

The body of the sanctuary is built in English-bonded red brick, with the south hall and annexes in garden-wall-bonded red brick. The sanctuary windows are round-arched casements with reinforced glazing over camber-headed lower windows, each bay embraced by a double recessed brick arch with voussoirs and moulded sills at each floor level.

The east elevation is five windows wide. To the left it is abutted by a single-storey canted annex attached to the lecture hall; the annex windows at centre and left are now bricked up, with a timber-panelled entrance door and segmental-arched fanlight at the right. The lecture hall gable at this end contains three segmental-arched windows and has a rendered plinth. To the right of the east elevation, a projecting stairwell — designed as a continuation of the classical entrance façade — has a single timber-panelled entrance door at the left and a blank opening at the right, each with a moulded surround and chamfered sill, accessed by two stone steps. These openings are surmounted by an oculus window with a moulded surround and voussoirs. There is a single window at first-floor level.

The south elevation is largely obscured by two canted annexes joining the double-height lecture hall, with an exposed central canted projection containing a single square-headed window at each face. The lecture hall's south elevation is roughcast rendered with a visible corbelled eaves course, five windows wide, each window divided by a rendered angle buttress with offsets and weathering. The windows here are replacement uPVC.

The west elevation mirrors the east in its general arrangement: five windows wide, with a single-storey canted annex to the right attaching to the lecture hall. This annex has segmental-arched timber sashes at centre and right, and a timber-panelled entrance door with segmental-arched fanlight at the left. The lecture hall gable at this end is abutted at centre by a lean-to porch containing double timber-panelled doors within a segmental-arched moulded opening, with a round-arched opening above it now boarded up, retaining its hood mould, and a single window to the left. The stairwell to the left of the west nave elevation is detailed to match that on the east side.

The lecture hall at the rear is double-height and was built in 1898 by Vincent Craig, a former pupil of W. H. Lynn who also designed Belmont Primary School and St John's Presbyterian Church. It is connected to the sanctuary by single-storey canted annexes housing a kitchen and a minister's room.

The interior demonstrates outstanding craftsmanship throughout, with much original fabric surviving intact. No original stained glass remains. The organ dates from 1906 and is by Evans and Barr.

Architecturally, the building is notable for its unusual plan form with four aisles and four gallery stairwells, the quality and survival of its interior, and the grandeur and proportion of its classical entrance façade. The three remaining elevations are relatively plain — a characteristic of Presbyterian ecclesiastical architecture noted by architectural historians, who have observed that the ordered restraint of the classical style, free from what was considered frivolous ornament, suited Presbyterian sensibilities and clearly distinguished such buildings from those of other denominations.

Gilliland is regarded as a forerunner of the Queen Anne movement and Gothic style, making the neo-classical approach here a deliberate choice rooted in the long tradition of classicism in Presbyterian church design. The building is one of the few surviving examples of his work, and he was a founder member and president of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects (RSUA).

The church was built in honour of Reverend Isaac Nelson, who was minister of Donegall Street Presbyterian Church and a public advocate of Home Rule. He succeeded Charles Stewart Parnell as Nationalist MP for County Mayo in 1880. In the mid-to-late 19th century, Nelson had lived at Sugarfield House, just to the south-west of the present church site; by the early 20th century, the house had given its name to Sugarfield Street, immediately to the south of the building. The church first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1901 and was listed in the Belfast Revaluations of 1900 at a value of £275, with the lecture hall separately valued at £44. Proceeds from lecture hall admission fees were directed towards the church.