Second Presbyterian Church, Main Street, Garvagh, Co Londonderry, BT51 5AD

Second Presbyterian Church, Main Street, Garvagh

A large, plain two-storey gable-fronted Presbyterian church built around 1845, located on the western side of Garvagh Main Street overlooking a graveyard that rises to the west. The building has a rectangular plan form with a tall hipped roof and a canted bay to the rear. It is set in the north-western corner of the site, accessed via a wide driveway from the street-fronted terrace.

The church's walls are finished with limestone chip render on a plain rendered plinth. The front eastern façade is symmetrical, featuring a central semi-circular headed door opening with a moulded surround, pilasters supporting an archivolt with a diamond pattern keystone, and a modern ceramic tile entrance platform. Either side of the door are flat-headed window openings; at first floor there are three evenly spaced semi-circular headed windows. The south elevation has five evenly spaced flat-headed window openings at ground floor, with five semi-circular headed openings at first floor, grouped on the left side and leaving a large blank area to the right. The north façade mirrors the south with five windows at each floor level. The front façade is flanked with moulded render in-out chamfered quoins. Window openings have smooth decorative render surrounds and slim concrete sills; window frames are timber replacements echoing the original design. The rear western façade features a tall canted hipped roof bay with semi-circular headed window openings on the canted faces.

Roofing throughout is covered in black fibre cement slates with matching coverage to the hipped bay. Verges are overhanging with plain timber bargeboards and exposed purlin ends on the eastern front. Timber fascia boards to the main roof fix directly to the wall without overhangs, while the projecting bay has overhanging timber eaves with plain fascias. Rainwater goods are in uPVC.

The congregation is believed to have been founded around 1773. An earlier T-shaped building, possibly the 'Seceding meeting house' of 1766, occupied the eastern end of the present plot as shown on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1832, though this appears to have been replaced by the present church, shown on the revised map of 1849-53. The current building was extended around 1975 by a bay at the western (pulpit) end and a flat-roofed addition to the rear. A large hall extension was constructed to the north-east around 1997-98.

The main church building is flanked by a single-storey flat-roofed extension that wraps around the western canted bay, constructed in matching materials of fibre cement slates and limestone chipping. A small detached hall stands immediately to the south, similarly styled with a gabled form, fibre cement roof, ruled and lined render walls with in-out quoins, and replacement uPVC windows.

The site now forms a large U-shaped plot, with the northern side used for car parking bounded by a low rendered wall with modern wrought-iron gates. The extensive alterations and additions of recent decades, together with new halls and car parking arrangements, have seriously compromised the building's original architectural and historic character.