Westbourne Presbyterian Church, 149A Newtownards Road, Belfast, County Antrim, BT4 1AB

A double-height Celtic-Revival Presbyterian Church with paired transepts and round bell tower, built c.1880 to designs by Young and McKenzie and enlarged c.1890; located to the south side of Newtownards Road east of Belfast city centre. The church is constructed of rubble-stone with pink sandstone dressings and red-brick. T-shaped in plan with projecting porch to east and west transepts; abutted by a two-storey red-brick school house (1886), also to designs by Young & MacKenzie, to southwest. Pitched natural slate roof with raised stone verges and sandstone kneelers; fishscale slates to tower. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on projecting eaves. Walls are uncoursed rubble-stone with pink sandstone dressings, including a chamfered plinth, windows and door surrounds, and string courses. Transepts are Flemish-bonded red-brick. Single stage buttress to east and west elevations. Windows are Y-tracery lancets in pink sandstone surrounds with chamfered sills. Tripartite Gothic mullioned windows to transepts and paired geometric windows with cusped oculus at north elevation. Slender Gothic lancets to third stage of tower (blind to south); diminutive square-headed openings at second stage. North-facing, comprising gabled bay with paired geometric windows and paired entrances below; abutted by round tower at right. Replacement double-leaf half-panelled timber doors with Gothic transom lights, each in pink sandstone Gothic surrounds surmounted by hood moulds and carved head-stops; flanked by paired pink sandstone semi-engaged columns on plinths with ornately carved capitals. The east elevation has slightly projecting bay at right with cusped oculus surmounted by cusped lancet. The nave is two sets of Y-tracery lancets wide; transept at left has three lancets surmounted by a tripartite mullioned window. Transept at far left (higher) has tripartite mullioned window; north elevation contains an oculus and is abutted to ground floor by the projecting porch containing a timber-sheeted double-leaf door accessed by two masonry steps. The south elevation was inaccessible and not viewed. The west elevation has two sets of Y-tracery lancets; transept at right has three lancets surmounted by a tripartite mullioned window; transept to far right (higher) has a tripartite mullioned window, abutted at ground floor by modern brick extension which is further abutted to the Presbytery to south (of no interest). Setting: Set back from the street with tarmacadamed parking area to front enclosed by rubble-stone and sandstone boundary wall with decorative metal railings and sandstone piers; Gothic gate piers to centre supporting original decorative gates with folding hinge. Early buttressed red-brick boundary wall to east. To southwest is a high modern metal gate attached to the wall of the school house and enclosing the rear yard. Roof: Natural slate Walling: Uncoursed rubble stone Windows: Y-tracery lancets RWG: Cast-iron ogee