The Water Margin Restaurant, 159 - 161 Donegall Pass, Belfast, County Antrim, BT7 1DT

The Water Margin Restaurant is a terraced, two-storey former Presbyterian church built around 1870 (specifically between June 1872 and May 1873) in the Gothic Revival style, designed by the prominent local architects Young and Mackenzie. It stands on Donegall Pass in Belfast city centre and has since been converted into a Chinese restaurant. Despite substantial alterations to the interior, much of the original external character and some internal detailing of the church has been retained, making it one of the more impressive historic buildings on Donegall Pass.

The building is constructed in buff pink rubble sandstone with ashlar Scrabo sandstone platbands at sill level to each floor, described at the time of construction as "neatly-jointed" rubble walling with tooled dressings. The plan is rectangular, with an unfinished entrance tower to the east — the tower was originally designed to rise to seventy feet but was never completed, almost certainly due to lack of funds. There is also a modern one-and-a-half-storey entrance porch to the east (of no interest) and three projecting gabled bays to the north. A modern gabled extension abuts the west elevation (also of no interest). The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with blue/black angled ridge tiles and leaded valleys, raised stone verges, and cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on moulded sandstone eaves.

The principal elevation faces north. The entrance tower to the left contains two replacement timber-sheeted doors set within a chamfered and carved recess, with a carved hood mould featuring ornately carved label stops and flanking semi-engaged half-colonettes. The doors are separated by a granite colonnette with a carved capital, and above them is an ornately carved pointed arch sandstone tympanum with a pierced trefoil, a floriated band, and carved foliate corner panels. Above the entrance on the right are arrow-slit openings, and three diminutive blind openings sit to the centre above. To the right of the entrance is a paired lancet window with an ornately carved quatrefoil above it, the central panel carrying carved "PCDP" entwined lettering. The three projecting bays to the right each have triple lancets to the ground floor. The tracery windows in the left and right gables have round-headed openings, while the central gable has a plate triple tracery window. The east elevation of the left gable has a lancet to the ground floor and a trefoil opening to the upper level; the exposed section of the east gable, where it is not abutted by the tower or modern porch, is cement rendered. The south (rear) elevation is five pairs of windows wide on each floor, with segmental-headed openings to the ground floor. Windows throughout are triple and paired lancets with replacement plate glass in smooth sandstone surrounds with chamfered sills, and plate tracery to the first floor, with square and segmental-headed openings to the rear elevation.

The congregation at Donegall Pass had its origins in 1867, arising from the work of the Town Mission, which appointed mission agents to visit poorer parts of Belfast and conduct religious activities. A theological student, James Dewar, was appointed to gather families in the Cromac Street area, and the newly formed congregation was formally sanctioned in 1869. Worship was initially held in a school-house on Cromac Street, but the rapidly expanding local population made a purpose-built church necessary. An "admirable" site was secured on Donegall Pass, and James Dewar, having been ordained in 1869, became the first minister of the congregation. The foundation stone was laid on 8th June 1872 by Sir Edward Coey. At the ceremony, the Moderator of the General Assembly, the Reverend Mr Johnston, remarked that it was "a very elegant structure indeed and quite in harmony with modern ideas." The builder was Robert Corry, and the cost was estimated at £2,300. The ground floor was designed to seat 580 people, with a further 186 to be accommodated in a gallery that was never completed. The church was opened for public worship on 18th May 1873 and was praised for the "simple and inexpensive manner" in which the details had been treated, with the exception of certain more prominent features where additional ornament was considered appropriate — the main entrance, decorated with "fruit and foliage of Eastern plants," was particularly noted in this regard. At the time of opening, a debt of £1,250 remained on the building. Schools were added to the site around 1880, and a manse followed. The building entered valuation records in 1872 as "Donegall Pass Presbyterian Church," valued at £140 and exempted. An active congregation worshipped here until 1973, when the building was vacated and the congregation united with that of Fitzroy Avenue. The church subsequently passed into commercial use as a Chinese restaurant.

The setting is open to the street, with paved parking to the front. The rear is partially enclosed by a concrete block wall, beyond which an alleyway separates the building from a mid-20th century Housing Executive (NIHE) estate of two-storey red-brick terraced houses.