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

Westbourne Presbyterian Church is a double-height Celtic Revival Presbyterian church built between 1877 and 1880 to designs by the renowned Belfast architects Young and Mackenzie, and enlarged around 1890. It stands on the south side of Newtownards Road, east of Belfast city centre, in the townland of Ballymacarret. It is an early and important example of the Celtic Revival style of architecture in Ulster. The listing covers the church itself together with its gates and gate piers to the front.

The foundation stone was laid on 17 December 1877; the builder was a Mr J. Russell of Belfast, and the estimated cost of construction was £3,000. The church was designed for the Belfast Church Building Society to accommodate a congregation of 700, and opened on 10 October 1880. Its origins lie in 1874, when subscriptions were first collected from Presbyterians in Ballymacarret for the erection of a new church in the area. During the ministry of the Reverend William Witherow (1883–1919), it became necessary to enlarge the church with the addition of transepts and side galleries, funded by congregational subscription. The building was redecorated and the current organ installed during the ministry of the Reverend John Henry Carson, who served from 1931 until his death in 1959. At its peak, Westbourne's congregation comprised almost 900 families; however, civil unrest from 1969 onwards greatly reduced membership to just over 200 by around 2000, and in 2001 the congregation was linked with Bloomfield Presbyterian Church, which had experienced a similar decline.

The church is T-shaped in plan, with projecting paired transepts and a round bell tower, its tower an imitation of the medieval Irish round towers, over 120 of which survive throughout Ireland. The Celtic Revival style in which it was designed emerged from the mid-19th century interest in Irish Celtic culture and mythology, at a time when ecclesiastical design in Ireland had previously been dominated by English and European influences for some two centuries.

The building is constructed of uncoursed rubble-stone with pink sandstone dressings and red brick. The roof is pitched natural slate with raised stone verges, sandstone kneelers, and fishscale slates to the tower. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods are carried on projecting eaves. The rubble-stone walls are finished with pink sandstone dressings throughout, including a chamfered plinth, window and door surrounds, and string courses. The transepts are built in Flemish-bonded red brick. Single-stage buttresses are present on the east and west elevations. Windows are Y-tracery lancets set in pink sandstone surrounds with chamfered sills. The transepts have tripartite Gothic mullioned windows, and there are paired geometric windows with a cusped oculus at the north elevation.

The principal, north-facing entrance elevation comprises a gabled bay with paired geometric windows and paired entrances below, abutted to the right by the round tower. The replacement double-leaf half-panelled timber doors have Gothic transom lights, each set within pink sandstone Gothic surrounds surmounted by hood moulds and carved head-stops, and flanked by pairs of pink sandstone semi-engaged columns on plinths with ornately carved capitals. The tower has slender Gothic lancets at its third stage, which are blind to the south, and diminutive square-headed openings at the second stage.

The east elevation has a slightly projecting bay to the right with a cusped oculus surmounted by a cusped lancet. The nave is two bays of Y-tracery lancets wide. The transept to the left has three lancets surmounted by a tripartite mullioned window. The higher transept at the far left also has a tripartite mullioned window; its north elevation contains an oculus, and is abutted at ground floor by a projecting porch housing a timber-sheeted double-leaf door accessed by two masonry steps. The south elevation was inaccessible and could not be viewed. The west elevation has two bays of Y-tracery lancets, with the transept to the right having three lancets surmounted by a tripartite mullioned window; the higher transept at the far right has a tripartite mullioned window and is abutted at ground floor by a modern brick extension, which is itself abutted by the Presbytery to the south, noted as being of no interest.

The interior is a typical late 19th century Presbyterian arrangement, otherwise well preserved. The building suffered some bomb damage during the Belfast Blitz of 1941, but its architectural detailing has survived well beyond this.

Adjoining the church to the southwest is a two-storey red-brick schoolhouse, also designed by Young and Mackenzie. In 1884 the architects were commissioned to design a school at the rear of the church; the schoolhouse was constructed in 1886 and opened on 17 September of that year. The contractor was a Mr William Kerr, the estimated cost was £800, and it was designed to accommodate 600 children across two schoolrooms and four classrooms. Following partition, control of the school passed from the National School System to the Belfast Education Authority. The schoolhouse adds considerably to the architectural interest of the church complex.

The church is set back from the street behind a tarmacked parking area enclosed by a rubble-stone and sandstone boundary wall with decorative metal railings and sandstone piers. Gothic gate piers at the centre support original decorative gates with folding hinges. An early buttressed red-brick boundary wall runs to the east. To the southwest, a high modern metal gate is attached to the wall of the schoolhouse, enclosing the rear yard.

The church is an important local landmark and is of significant social importance to the surrounding community.