Chapel of the Ressurrection, Innisfayle Park, Antrim Road, Belfast, Co. Antrim, **See general comments**

Chapel of the Resurrection, Innisfayle Park, Antrim Road, Belfast

This is a free-standing, asymmetrical, single-cell Gothic Revival former mortuary chapel, built between 1865 and 1869 in sandstone to designs by the firm of Lanyon, Lynn & Lanyon. It stands on a slightly elevated site to the north of Innisfayle Park, in the townland of Low Wood, set behind the rear elevations of suburban housing and accessed via a short gravel driveway. The building is currently empty, secured with steel palisade fencing, and is recorded as derelict.

Origins and Historical Context

The chapel was built as a mortuary memorial to the Earl of Belfast, son of George Chichester, the third Marquis of Donegall, who had died in 1853. His remains were subsequently moved here and interred in the vault beneath the chapel. The building predates Belfast Castle, which was constructed between 1868 and 1870 on the same estate. The third Marquis had found his previous home, Ormeau House, to be an ill-constructed residence and, despite being in constant debt, resolved to build a new mansion on lands he still owned in the deer park to the north of Belfast. The proposal to build was announced in 1865, though construction was delayed by a legal dispute with a neighbouring landowner. Following the completion of Belfast Castle in 1870, Ormeau House was demolished and its grounds were given by the Marquis to Belfast Corporation to create Ormeau Park, Belfast's first public park.

Belfast Castle was designed by John Lanyon, son of Sir Charles Lanyon and a partner in Lanyon, Lynn & Lanyon, in the emerging Scots-Baronial style that had become fashionable following the reconstruction of Balmoral Castle in that style between 1852 and 1856. The authorship of the chapel within the firm is a matter of some debate: Paul Larmour states it was almost certainly the work of Lynn rather than the Lanyons, while Barton suggests Sir Charles Lanyon was the partner most responsible. The chapel was constructed using locally quarried Scrabo sandstone, with Portland limestone employed as a secondary material. It was consecrated on 20th December 1869 and was initially valued at £10 under the Annual Revisions.

The chapel's interior originally contained a white marble monument to the Earl of Belfast, depicting him on his deathbed, sculpted by Patrick McDowell (1799–1879). In 1891 the building was converted into a private chapel for the use of the owners and occupants of Belfast Castle. This conversion included the decoration of the interior and the addition of an altar, reading desk, organ, and stained glass windows. The interior refurbishment was carried out by Cox and Sons of London and Buckley and Co. of Youghal, County Cork. The organ was built by Wordsworth and Co. of Leeds.

Following the death of the third Marquis of Donegall in 1883, Belfast Castle and its estate passed to his son-in-law, Antony Ashley-Cooper, Lord Ashley, the eighth Earl of Shaftesbury, who had married Lady Harriet Chichester in 1857. The Shaftesbury family continued to hold Belfast Castle until 1934, when the ninth Earl granted the building and the 200-acre estate to Belfast Corporation. The family had continued to use the chapel for private and semi-private services even though they also had an oratory within the castle itself, though during the First World War services were discontinued except on very occasional instances. Belfast Castle was formally transferred to Belfast Corporation on 1st February 1935. The chapel itself was retained by the Shaftesbury family until 1938, when it was transferred to the Church of Ireland and became the responsibility of St. Peter's Church of Ireland. The first public service was held there on 18th September 1938.

The building suffered minor damage during the Belfast Blitz, after which repairs were carried out to the roof and windows. Regular services continued between 1938 and the 1960s, but declining church attendance, a change in the local population, and persistent vandalism — exacerbated by the development of post-war housing around the site during the 1950s and 1960s — led to regular services being terminated in 1965. By the time of the Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956–72), the chapel's rateable value had risen to £192. The congregation of St. Peter's endeavoured to maintain the building, but by 1974 recurrent vandalism had forced the Select Vestry to remove all furnishings and sell the organ to a rural church. By the 1980s the chapel had fallen into an advanced state of disrepair and was enclosed behind a barbed wire fence. In 1982 the vaults beneath the chapel were vandalised and the remaining tombs, containing the remains of the Chichester family, were desecrated. The chapel was listed at category B+ in 1974.

Between 2007 and 2008, holding repairs were carried out, including repairs to the roof, restoration of the roof trusses, and cleaning of the stonework. All openings and doors were blocked up to prevent further vandalism. A number of the chapel's original furnishings survive at St. Peter's Church of Ireland, where a side chapel opened in 2000, also named the Chapel of the Resurrection, houses the reredos, the altar, several statues, the credence table, and the original lectern.

Exterior Description

The plan is rectangular with an apsidal east chancel, an octagonal bell-tower to the southwest, and a gabled projection to the north. The roof is steeply pitched in natural slate, hipped to the east, with fish-scale banding, clay ridge tiles, and lead hip ridges surmounted by a wrought-iron finial. The roof sits behind an ashlar sandstone parapet with tapered coursing and a roll-top ridge. This parapet is punctuated by trefoil-headed gablets that surmount stepped buttresses. Rainwater goods are not visible. The walls are of random coursed, rock-faced sandstone with dressed sandstone quoins, cement pointing, and a double-chamfered stepped plinth course. Window openings are pointed-headed with hood mouldings, label blocks, splayed sills, and bipartite cusped stone window frames with cusped oculi. Traces of latticed leaded glazing remain visible.

The principal south elevation is asymmetrical. To the left stands the octagonal bell-tower, adjacent to the gabled entrance porch, with two nave windows to the right. The bays are divided by stepped buttresses, with continuous beak mouldings at sill level and at the base of the parapet; the parapet moulding has projecting blocks at regular intervals. These mouldings continue around the three-stage octagonal bell-tower, which has stepped buttressing in ashlar stone to the exposed faces at the base and diminutive cusped lancets. The upper stage is arcaded with trefoil-headed openings flanked by pink stone colonettes, and terminates in a tapered ashlar stone spire with a wrought-iron finial. The gabled entrance occupies the left bay and has a vertically-sheeted timber door set behind a cusped, pointed-arched opening with a compound moulded surround rising from squat colonettes. The doorway is surmounted by a crocketed raised gable with a trefoil finial. Above the entrance is a cusped trefoil opening with a hood moulding and square label stops.

The west gable has a single stepped buttress to the left and a large rose window with elaborate cusped stone tracery. A smaller circular window, also cusped with dressed stone, is centred at the top of the gable. The north elevation is detailed in the same manner as the south, with a single-storey gabled projection abutted by a large shouldered chimneystack with a later octagonal top and conical chimney, surmounted by a trefoil stone finial. The east apsidal chancel elevation was not accessible at the time of survey.

The robust detailing and vertical emphasis of the composition create a picturesque effect, enhanced by the elevated setting. The chapel forms an important part of the former Belfast Castle demesne and has group value with Belfast Castle and the Gate Lodge to Belfast Castle.