Ballywillan Presbyterian Church, 131 Atlantic Road, Portrush, Co. Antrim, BT56 8PB

Ballywillan Presbyterian Church is a free-standing Gothic-Revival church built in 1889, situated on the east side of Atlantic Road south of Portrush, in the townland of Ballymaclevennon West. It is constructed in uncoursed rock-faced blackstone with sandstone dressings, and represents an important example of late-Victorian ecclesiastical architecture in the area, contributing significantly to the architectural character of Portrush and its surroundings. The church also holds considerable social importance and local interest to the surrounding community.

The building has a rectangular plan with transepts to the ecclesiastical north and south, a three-stage square tower at the southwest corner, and a series of modern extensions to the ecclesiastical east. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles and cross finials to the gables. Raised stone verges feature Gothic kneelers with cusped gablets. Rainwater goods are cast-iron ogee pattern, carried on projecting sandstone eaves. Throughout, the walling is uncoursed rock-faced blackstone with sandstone dressings, angled buttresses rising to sandstone offsets, and a string course running to the apex of the gable and above the first stage of the tower.

The windows are generally leaded-and-stained glass lancets, mostly dating from the 20th century, though two are original. All have sandstone surrounds with chamfered sills, and the transept and tower windows have hood moulds above them.

The west principal gable adjoins the tower and features three staged lancets with a slender blind opening at the apex. The tower itself has buttresses rising to corner Gothic pinnacles flanking a crenellated parapet. The third stage displays mock machicolations above paired cusped louvered openings to the belfry. The second stage has a lancet on each face. At ground floor level, the north face of the tower has a lancet, while the west face has a modern tripartite window inserted into a former entrance, retaining its original surround of staged moulded archivolt with hood mould and semi-engaged colonettes with round capitals at impost level.

The north elevation has three lancets divided by buttresses, with the north transept to the left lit by paired tall lancets to the gable. The east gable has a round-headed replacement leaded-and-stained glass window with hood mould and is flanked by modern gabled extensions to left and right. The south elevation mirrors the north in its detailing, with an entrance to the left sheltered by a modern slated porte-cochere over replacement double-leaf timber doors set within a chamfered ashlar sandstone reveal. Modern brick paviors are laid to the entrance door.

The church has been altered and refurbished in the mid-20th century, including the insertion of modern glazing, the addition of the large porte-cochere, and the construction of modern extensions to the east. To the rear there are a variety of modern single-storey extensions, including a large gabled hall, all with artificial slate roofs, roughcast rendered or pebbledash walls, and uPVC windows. A polygonal extension to the north has modern leaded and stained glass windows.

The setting is rural. The church is set back from the road and accessed via a long tarmacadamed avenue leading to a car park to the south of the building. The site is enclosed by hedging and mature trees, with roughcast rendered walls having concrete coping to the north and south. A second access point from Maclevennon Road to the east passes through modern partially roughcast rendered entrance walls with square piers and concrete coping.

The first Presbyterian congregation in the parish of Ballywillan was formed in the late 17th century, making the current building the third meeting house to have been constructed in the area. The original 17th-century meeting house was replaced in 1828 by a rectangular building described in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs as 54 feet long by 30 feet broad and two storeys in height, lit by eight windows on each side with an entrance door in each gable. This second church was built at a cost of £600, predominantly raised by subscription, and could accommodate 450 parishioners. The 1831 census recorded 554 Presbyterians within the parish of Ballywillan out of a total population of 897. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs attribute the design of this second church to a Mr Angus Cameron of Ballymoney, though no further information about this architect is known. The original congregation was formed following the dismissal of the Reverend Gabriel Cornwall from the local parish church at Crossreagh Crossroads in 1661; Cornwall established the first Presbyterian meeting house in Ballymaclevennon West and ministered to the local congregation until his death in 1691.

The 1830 first edition Ordnance Survey map depicts the building as an oblong structure within the townland of Ballymaclevennon West, captioned simply as "Meeting House." The contemporary Townland Valuation assessed the meeting house at £10 12s. The second edition Ordnance Survey map of around 1860 shows no alteration to the layout of the site, and Griffith's Valuation of 1856 records only a slight increase in value to £10 15s. By 1891, following the replacement of the late-Georgian meeting house with the present church, the rateable value had risen substantially to £48 15s., reflecting the scale of the new building erected in 1889. The new church occupied the same site as its predecessor but was considerably larger. No further change in value was recorded through the Annual Revisions up to 1930.

According to Girvan, plans for a replacement church presented in 1887 by a W. J. Given — a Gothic-style design — were rejected by the congregation. The preferred design was by William J. Anderson, who also favoured a Gothic approach executed in basalt and sandstone. Anderson was a civil engineer and architect active in Coleraine during the 1880s and 1890s. The contractor appointed to carry out the work was a Mr James Kennedy. The foundation stone was laid by William Young JP in August 1888 and the church was opened on 14th July 1889. A church hall was added in 1934 at a cost of over £1,700, and the current pipe organ was installed in 1959 in memory of a Mr and Mrs Hutchinson of the local parish. The church was listed in 1977. In 2003, extensive restoration work was carried out, during which the roof of the tower was replaced, the masonry repointed, and the interior redecorated and repaired. Membership of Ballywillan Presbyterian Church has more than tripled over the past 50 years and currently stands at around 475 families.