St Simon's Church of Ireland, Donegall Road, Belfast, County Antrim, BT12

St Simon's Church of Ireland is a Gothic Revival church on Donegall Road, Belfast, built between 1923 and 1930 to designs by architect Richard Mills Close (1880–1946) and constructed by local firm D. McCune & Son of Arbour Street, Belfast. The stonework was carried out by James Jamison & Son of 27 College Park Avenue, Belfast. The church occupies a prominent corner site at the junction of Donegall Road and Nubia Street, and its tower forms a recognisable landmark on Donegall Road.

ARCHITECTURE AND EXTERIOR

The building is double-height, gabled and built of red brick in English garden-wall bond, with Runcorn stone dressings and a chamfered plinth course. The plan is rectangular, set on an east–west axis, with a single-storey flat-roofed porch to the east, a gabled chancel to the west, and a square-plan tower to the north. The roof is covered in natural green slate with angled red clay ridge tiles, raised stone verges and stone apex details to the gables. At eaves level, chamfered red brick corbels support an ogee-moulded sandstone cornice, with ogee-profile cast-iron guttering discharging to rectangular-section cast-iron downpipes. Throughout the building, two-stage angled buttresses with cut-stone coping divide the elevations into bays.

Windows are generally round-arched with sandstone sills and arches, fitted with stained leaded glazing and fixed external mesh.

The principal elevation faces east and features a full-width projecting single-storey three-bay porch, with a square-plan four-stage tower rising from the northeast corner. The gable above the porch has three round-arched windows set within a recessed semicircular brick arch, with the central window taller than the flanking two. The porch has a raised parapet and is divided into three bays by two-stage buttresses. The end bays have round-arched doorways with stepped recessed surrounds in red brick and sandstone, fitted with panelled timber doors, while the central bay has a three-part window. The doorways open onto a concrete platform with stairs and a ramp. Single windows face north and south on the sides of the porch.

The tower has an abutting stair tower to the east, a single window to the north and west faces at the second stage, and a small round opening at the third stage. The belfry stage has shouldered louvred openings. Above the raised parapet rises a slated spire with a metal finial. (The stone spire originally intended was still being erected at the time of consecration in 1930 and was ultimately finished in slate rather than stone.)

The north elevation shows the five-bay north aisle, a single-bay gabled outshot to the west, and the tower at the east end. Paired windows appear in four of the aisle bays, while the fifth gabled bay has a round-arched doorway with a red sandstone hood. The gabled outshot has paired windows with a circular stone moulding above, a diagonal buttress to the south end, and two windows on its south elevation. Rounded arch windows sit at high level in the nave above.

The west elevation is a double-height single-bay gable with three round-arched windows, the central one taller, and diagonal buttresses at the corners, with single windows to the north and south.

The south elevation presents five bays of the south aisle with paired windows in each bay separated by two-stage buttresses, a single-storey gabled outshot to the east with a single window to its front and west elevations and diagonal buttresses at its ends, and a double-storey gabled outshot to the west. A small lean-to extension at the west end has a square-headed door opening with a sheeted timber door and a small square-headed window to its south face. Rounded arch windows appear at high level in the nave above.

INTERIOR

The pillars and arches of the nave are in Runcorn stone — the same material used extensively at Liverpool and Chester Cathedrals. The open roof is of pitch pine in a king post truss arrangement, with the king post braces supported on Newry granite corbels. The arcaded pulpit is of Scottish sandstone. The church was originally fitted with concealed lighting, which was an unusual feature when it opened.

The reredos and oak panelling in the chancel were dedicated in March 1960 as a memorial to those who served in the Second World War, at which time a new heating system was also installed. The Jefferson Memorial Window in the chancel dates from 1965 and was erected in memory of Robert Jefferson, the first principal of St Simon's School, who later became Bishop of Ottawa in Canada. The window depicts St Simon the Zealot, Christ the King with the eleven disciples, and St Patrick.

The marble font came from St Anne's Church (now Cathedral), where it had originally been presented by William Spiller in 1868. The organ was brought from the Chapel of the Resurrection in north Belfast, but was destroyed by fire in 1972 and subsequently replaced.

HISTORY

The origins of the congregation can be traced to the late 1890s, when the curate of St Anne's Church began holding services in a house in Lecale Street in the Donegall Road area. In anticipation of housing development nearby, a site for both a church and school on Donegall Road was purchased in 1900 for £829. The school opened in 1903 and served also as a Sunday School and venue for worship. An iron church previously used in St Donard's parish was later acquired and re-erected on the site of the present church for £400, coming into use on 27 August 1911.

By the early 1920s attendance had grown to over 500, and the Reverend A.G. Johnston, curate-in-charge, and the select vestry decided to proceed with a permanent new church. Construction took place in two main phases. The foundation stone of the chancel was laid on 9 July 1923 by the Marquess of Londonderry, then Minister of Education in the Northern Ireland government, with the chancel expected to cost £2,000 of an anticipated total of £10,000. The chancel was consecrated in June 1924 and temporarily joined to the iron church. St Simon's was the first church to benefit from the Belfast Additional Churches Act, passed by the General Synod of the Church of Ireland in 1928, receiving £10,481 in total under that legislation. The foundation stone of the nave was laid on 9 July 1928, at which point the iron church was moved to a nearby site for use as a parish hall.

The architect, Richard Mills Close, was the son of Samuel Patrick Close and had been taken into his father's partnership in 1910, effectively running the practice from 1915. He was appointed architect to St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast in 1923, and since St Anne's was the mother church of St Simon's, this connection led directly to his involvement in the new building.

The church was consecrated on 24 May 1930 by the Bishop of Down and Connor, the spire still being under construction at that time. The total cost of the completed church was approximately £15,000, and it provided seating for 500 people. This was a period of significant expansion for the Church of Ireland in Belfast: St Simon's was one of ten churches dedicated in the period 1930 to 1933.

In 2007 an application was made to provide a new ramp and steps at the entrance to the church.

SETTING

The church stands within its own grounds. The areas to the north and east are landscaped, while the south side is a tarmac car park. The site is enclosed by coursed rock-faced sandstone walling with cast-iron railings and gates to the north and east elevations, and fencing to the south and west.