88 Clifton Street, Former Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT13 1AB

88 Clifton Street — Former Cloisters, Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church Complex, Belfast

This is an attached two-storey gabled stone former cloister building, constructed around 1888 to designs by architect James John Phillips (1841/42–1936), commissioned by Alderman James Carlisle and completed in 1889. It forms part of the Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church complex and was built to connect the church to the Sunday school, sitting set back between both buildings with its enclosed front facing onto the south side of Clifton Street. The building is now used as offices by the Ulster Provident Housing Association.

Background and Historical Context

The adjacent Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church was erected in 1874–75 as a memorial to Alderman James Carlisle's son, who had died at the age of eighteen, funded entirely by Carlisle himself. Carlisle died on 25 November 1882, and in his will he left £7,630 to the Trustees of Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church to fund the construction of a complex providing Sunday schools, a lecture hall, a church parlour, and the cloisters linking the two main buildings. The church hall and cloisters were built between 1888 and 1889 by the contractor Henry Laverty and Sons, and the opening ceremony was performed on 23 November 1889 by the widowed Mrs Carlisle.

According to the Irish Builder, the complex was designed in a Gothic style consistent with the church, and comprised Sunday school rooms, a lecture hall, a church parlour, and the cloisters. The church history describes the hall as containing an assembly hall sixty feet by forty feet with galleries at the sides and end, off which twenty-three classrooms opened from both the ground floor and galleries, along with a minor hall, a special room for young children, cloakrooms, a secretary's room, and a library. The cloisters connected the church and hall, above which sat the church parlour — described in the church history as one of the most welcoming rooms in the complex, used for quarterly board meetings, choir practice, and other gatherings. A full-length portrait of Alderman Carlisle hung in an alcove behind the platform, and a bust of John Wesley stood on the mantelpiece. In 1945, one of the two original transepts of the hall was converted into a lounge room, with a new separate entrance leading from the cloisters.

When completed, the hall and cloisters were jointly valued at £300 in the Annual Revisions. By the 1900 Belfast Revaluation the complex comprised twenty rooms fitted throughout with gas installations and was revalued at £380. The First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland in 1935 rated the building at £680. The complex survived the Belfast Blitz of 1941 with only superficial damage — the church history records that many carved stone ornaments were shattered and windows in the church, cloisters, and Sunday schools were destroyed. By the end of the Second General Revaluation in 1972 the joint value of the buildings had risen to £1,280.

The church was listed in 1980, but due to the construction of the Westlink motorway and the building's position at a major community interface, the Methodist congregation dwindled and the church closed in 1982. Prior to closure, the church trustees were compelled to sell the adjoining church hall during the 1970s; the cloisters were most likely sold at the same time, though this is not confirmed.

James John Phillips was a Belfast-based architect who was also accomplished as a watercolourist and produced most of the perspective drawings for John Lanyon, son of Charles Lanyon. The Dictionary of Irish Architects records that from the 1880s until the early twentieth century, Phillips was the preferred — and perhaps the official — architect of the Methodist Church in the north of Ireland, designing or altering at least seventeen Methodist churches in Belfast and the northern counties. This building is considered one of his principal works.

Exterior Description

The roofs are pitched natural slate with roll-moulded terracotta ridge tiles. A tall chimneystack in red brick and stone rises from the south side elevation. The roof sits behind a slightly raised front gable with stone coping surmounted by a fleur-de-lys finial and kneeler stones. Cast-iron guttering runs to a stepped brick eaves course, with cast-iron downpipes below.

The main walling to the front elevation is coursed rock-faced limestone with red sandstone dressings and trims. The side and rear elevations are in red brick laid in Flemish bond. Windows are framed in red sandstone with multiple lights, splayed sandstone sills, and some leaded glazing.

The front elevation is composed of a central gabled two-storey block, fronted by a single-storey advanced wing, with a further two-storey connecting wing to the north. To the gable is a three-sided canted bay window with a steeply pitched natural slate roof, trefoil-headed lights with transoms, and leaded coloured glazing to the overlights. The connecting wing's first floor has a window of three shouldered-headed lights with transoms. The advanced single-storey wing features large pointed-headed window openings flanked by weathered buttresses, each containing three lancets set within red sandstone tracery, with splayed sills and largely replacement glazing.

The central entrance has a gabled doorcase with decorative coping, flanked by a pair of gableted piers. The door opening is trefoil-headed with a compound arch, fitted with double-leaf vertically-sheeted hardwood doors with decorative iron furniture, opening onto a single step to the front paved area.

The south side elevation has a single lancet to the upper floor and two later square-headed window openings. The two-storey rear elevation is partly gabled, with a pair of lancets to the first floor, an oval panel to the centre, and a stone string course running across the parapet to the northernmost bay. The north bay has a triple-light square-headed window opening, and the ground floor has paired square-headed window openings. A pointed-arched door opening to the left is formed in gauged brick with replacement double-leaf sheeted hardwood doors and an overlight. The north side elevation is largely obscured by neighbouring buildings, but paired square-headed window openings are visible, some retaining original coloured leaded glazing and some replaced with uPVC.

Interior

The interior has been extensively remodelled for use as housing association offices, resulting in the loss of most of the original fabric. The original roof structure survives.

Setting

The building occupies an elevated site as part of the Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church complex on the south side of Clifton Street. The site is enclosed to the street by decorative iron railings and gates on a limestone plinth wall with red sandstone piers and tapered capstones. A relocated font in limestone and sandstone stands in the setting to the north-east of the cloisters.

Significance

Although the interior has been substantially compromised by conversion for office use, a good deal of historic external fabric and detailing of high quality and craftsmanship survives. The cloisters form an intrinsic part of the wider complex, which together with the church and Sunday school represents a significant architectural group both locally and in the context of Belfast as a whole. The complex as a whole reflects the changing history of the Methodist Church in Belfast and the shifting population patterns of the twentieth century.